


A Few Good People

by straight_up_gay



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (not exactly) Strip Sabacc, Bodhi Rook is a Big Deal in the Rebellion, Discussions of Authoritarianism, Discussions of Past Trauma, M/M, Political Themes, in this house we love and appreciate Lando Calrissian, nobody asked for this And Yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-02-17 08:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13072809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straight_up_gay/pseuds/straight_up_gay
Summary: Lando Calrissian has enough to deal with keeping his mines running and keeping the Empire out of his city.He doesn't need his ex showing up on his doorstep. He doesn't need his ex showing up on his doorstep with the Empire's Most Wanted, a defector slightly too honest (and too handsome) for comfort. And he doesn't need to get dragged into a hopeless rebellion.All he wants to do is keep his city safe. All hecando is keep his city safe. Right?





	1. Chapter 1

Lando instantly recognizes two of the people who step off the Falcon.

Han, he could clock from his walk alone, the stuttering swagger of someone who isn't as sure of themselves as they pretend to be. And Chewie isn't exactly difficult to pick out in a crowd, given that he's six feet tall and hairy as a wampa. 

The woman, he gets after a moment. Vader had told him she might be onboard, and there's no mistaking the famous Last Senator of Alderan. But he's not sure about the second man; Vader hadn't warned him about a fourth passenger. He's handsome, probably a few years younger than Lando. 

He’s got a pilot’s walk, rolling a little even on solid ground. He's also got the same crown of braid as the Princess, suggesting that one of them did both of their hair. But Han has caught up to him, and he's swept up in the same mixture of fondness and irritation that Han always makes him feel. 

"Why, you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler! You've got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled!" 

But that's just Han all over, showing up with a barely-repentant grin, just sweet enough that Lando would forgive him. 

"How you doing, you old pirate? So good to see you! I never thought I'd catch up with you again. Where you been?" 

The briefing he'd been given said Hoth, not the kind of planet Lando ever wanted to visit. Han and Princess - no, Senator Organa are both dressed for its harsh winters, but the other man isn't. He's in a smart black flight suit. 

"And how did you come to be in such lovely company?" Han scowls, jamming his hands into his pockets. Lando recognizes that hangdog look. He must be interested in one of them. Something is really bothering him about the man with the lovely hair. Lando Calrissian never forgets a face, so he knows he hasn't seen him in person, but he's seen the man somewhere. 

"Well, if this grouchy old pirate won't do the pleasantries, I'll have to do them myself. I'm Lando Calrissian, the administrator of this old city. And who might you both be?" 

"I'm Leia," the woman says. Han's scowl deepens even more when he leans forward to kiss her hand, so clearly, she's the one he's sweet on. Lando has to suppress a smirk. Han always had a thing for people his charm didn't work on. 

"And you?" he asks, turning to the man. 

He hesitates for a moment, before saying, "Bodhi. Bodhi Rook." 

"Charmed," he says, and his head is halfway down to the man's hand before he realizes exactly what he's said. He feels deeply blessed that no one can see the expression on his face. _The_ Bodhi Rook, in his city, in the middle of whatever big Imperial shell game Vader has going on. 

Oh, _fuck_. 

***

When the visitors have been set up in their new quarters, Lando retires to his office. He needs to send a message. 

Darth Vader had given him an Imperial-issue I-51 comm to let him know when the rebels arrived. He looks at it with distaste, then starts typing. _On-planet. Hyperdrive broken, can delay for at least a month if needed_. 

He sighs, and slumps down into his desk chair. He doesn't know much about Skywalker, doesn't know how long it will take him to show up to rescue his friends. Hell, he doesn't even know how the kid's supposed to find out they're in trouble. 

"Jedi," Lando says, rolling the world around in his mouth. Of course, there were never Jedi. They'd never existed, not according to the Empire. Still, he finds himself wondering whether Skywalker's anything like his hazy, early memories of the Jedi of Socorro's academy. 

_Additional crew member here as well_. He hesitates, then continues. _Rebellion pilot. No known relation to Skywalker._ All of that's true. Technically. Technically true. As far as he knows, Bodhi Rook's got no particular relevance to the current mission, which is all about capturing the Skywalker kid.

The files on him are depressingly easy to bring to mind: Luke Skywalker, age twenty-two and a bit, with the kind of smile that lets you know he won't even do you the decency of being a bastard. 

That's who he's being blackmailed – oh, sorry, _bribed with the possibility of continuing as governor of the city_ , as Vader had charmingly put it – into selling out to the Empire. 

He’s the business administrator of a city with six million people all resting on him, like the counterweights on a mining fulcrum. If he wants Cloud City to stay out of Imperial hands, it's all on him. All he has to do is stay quiet, hold onto his guests for long enough, and the city'll stay free. 

Twenty-three percent. That's the loss he has to take on Imperial tibanna shipments to keep the city neutral, and it's worth every microcredit. This is just another price he needs to pay. 

What had his mother said? _You can't save the galaxy, little bee,_ with blaster tar on her hands and that sad smile on her face. _It's too big. All you can do is look after a few good people._

Lando scowls, and throws the comm unit down on his cot. Time to fake his way through a lovely dinner. 

*** 

Socorrans don't believe in a hell, the saying goes, because they already live on Socorro. But Lando's pretty sure he believes in it now. Only in hell could he be at a table with his ex-partner, his ex-partner's best friend who hates him, a Rebel senator known for her fierce tongue, and the Empire's Most Wanted. 

"There'll be a delay on the hyperdrive fix," he says, helping himself to some of the wine. "My engineers assure me it's absolutely busted, that it'll take at least a month to fix. Apparently, it's been run into the ground."

Bodhi looks up. "Can't you change it for another model's hyperdrive? I mean, I know it's not a good idea, but it works in the short term, right?"

Comparing Rook to the picture in the wanted holos, it's easy to see why Lando hadn't recognized him at first. In his Imperial record holo, he was handsome, but a wan, sad kind of handsome. In the flesh, he could be a holovid star.

Vader's report hadn't mentioned anything about him, but it wasn't like Lando had needed the information. Everyone knows about Bodhi Rook and the string of defections he leaves in his wake. And the astronomical bounty on his head, higher than almost anyone else in the Rebellion. 

"Han, tell the nice man why I can't do that." 

Han scowls. He's had at least three glasses of wine so far, which means he's in a mood. "The Falcon's an antique, kid." Bodhi frowns. "Most parts are interchangeable, these days, but not back when she was made. We'd have to order 'em in." 

Leia crosses her arms, looking wary. "It doesn't take a month to order in parts from Corellia." 

Against his will, Lando's impressed. Her cool stare is like being interrogated by half the Senate. 

"No," Lando concedes, "but we can't order them in. Again, the Falcon's one of a kind. There isn’t an Imperial blockade hanging over us yet, but any shipments we bring in get searched. If we bring in a special order for a hyperdrive core matching the one-of-a-kind one on a wanted ship? Let’s just say bye-bye to our neutral status." 

"So, the city's actually neutral then," Leia says, more to herself than to anyone else. She's been playing with her wine glass, but very little of it has been drunk. Lando isn't sure whether or not it's an accusation. 

"I don't want to get my city blasted out of the sky, and staying neutral's the best way to do it."

Leia and Bodhi share a look he can't decipher. "I hope that works out for you," Bodhi says.

Seventeen defections. That's the official number the Empire credits to Rook, although Lando would bet good money that the actual number is higher. The Empire always focuses on the high brass and the intelligence officers, forgetting that a rogue construction worker or sanitation officer can do just as much damage. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Nothing," Bodhi says. "Only I really do hope it works."

Han leans back in his chair, clearly less steady than he thinks he is. He must be really unhappy to be this drunk. 

“Now, wait, you’re telling me we’re stuck here? I mean, no offense, it’s a nice place and all, but...”

“Not stuck, no,” Lando said, smoothing his hands over the surface of the table. “My guest for as long as you’re here. And as my guests, I’ll do everything within my power to make sure the Falcon gets repaired.”

Anything within his power, which means nothing. 

"And, while you're here, I'll try to make your stay as comfortable as possible." He smiles. "You gotta admit, it's not a bad city to be marooned in, if you have a choice." There's a palpable silence from the other side of the table 

"Excuse me," Bodhi says, standing up behind his chair. "I need to go get some fresh air." 

His wine glass is pristine, not even fingerprints on the outside, and he's barely touched his food.

Leia makes her excuses moments later, leaving him with just Han and Chewie. 

Lando looks across the table at Chewie, who gives him a grin just south of amiable. Lando recognizes the smile; it's one meant to remind people that Wookies bare their teeth for many reasons other than smiling. 

He looks away.

Han blinks, clearly trying to clear his head. "So, that's how you're going to play it."

"That's how I'm going to play what?" 

Han scowls, swirling his remaining wine around in the bottom of the glass. "You know what I'm talking about. You're just gonna pretend like ... like we weren't..."

Lando shrugs, feigning a smile. "Listen, Han. I don't mean anything unkind by it. I'd just rather things weren't awkward."

Han's mouth drops open. "You'd just rather things weren't ... Yeah, you actually mean that, don't you." Han sighs. "Well, suit yourself. You usually do." 

Han walks away, with the hangdog slouch that means he wants you to follow. Lando doesn't. 

It's better this way, better that none of them really like him. It's a simple enough job he's been given - hold onto Skywalker's friends until he comes to the city - and if he doesn't get stupid and sentimental, everyone should come out the other side relatively intact. 

That's the best he can hope for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back in the summer, someone wrote a tumblr post about Bodhi and Lando interacting. And, because they are my underappreciated favourites and I can't leave well enough alone, I started thinking about the parallels in their stories and ... yeah. 
> 
> this was going to be 5,000 words (max) of lighthearted flirting. instead, I wrote 25,000 words about Authoritarianism and Trauma and Speaking Truth To Power and Doing The Right Thing Even When You Don't Think You Can Win, because I am the bitch who never learns.
> 
> Updates on Saturdays.


	2. Chapter 2

The day dawns bright, as it always does hovering above the clouds. Lando is pretty certain that there has never been one identical sunrise the entire time he's been in charge of Cloud City. And he knows, because he's been up to see them all. 

He sips at his mug of caf, enjoying the floating bits of beans. Lobot continually tries to reprogram the caf-dispensing droid to give him better caf, but Lando's bribed it to give him the bean bits. It always reminds him of the caf he'd boiled on the burners of the Falcon, usually blacker than the void of space and tasting vaguely like motor oil. 

Lobot looks at him disapprovingly. Lando grins back. 

The communicator on his wrist beeps. _Would you like to know exactly how bad for you that stuff is? I can lay it out, with statistics._

Even though Lobot can't talk, he can still convey a deeply disgusted tone with just the way he sends his messages from his implant. 

Lando takes an enormous slurp of his caf, and puts the mug down on his desk. "I'm here for a good time, not a long time, Lobot. All right, tell me the news for the morning. Mining collapse? Wiring malfunction? Entire city about to fall out of the sky?" 

_There is a suspicious-looking ship anchored about five knots east of the city. Permission to send a squad out to investigate?_

Lando forces a laugh. "It's probably nothing, Lobot. Probably just some damn fool mining captain playing his idea of a prank on the old boss." 

It's Vader's ship, Vader's crew. And Lando hasn't told Lobot about his deal. Oh, sure, Lobot would understand, as he always understood things Lando did that he didn't like. He'd understand and be disappointed, and Lando thinks he'd rather have anger. 

Lando forces his brain quiet. If the city got taken, Lobot's old Imperial cybernetics would make him one of the first against the wall. "And what about my guests?" 

_Organa is in her quarters. She has requested several holobooks. Chewbacca is in the cantina, and appears to be occupied._

Lando smirks. He'd clearly found someone stupid enough to play dejarik against him. 

_Solo_ , and here, Lobot's nose wrinkles in disapproval _is attending to his ship. He seems displeased about the hyperdrive, but resigned to the situation_

"And Rook?" Lando asks. "How's our mystery defector?" 

  _Rook is up on the roof._

Lando blinks. "Rook is _what_?" 

  _On the roof_

Lando stands up, picking up his mug. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" 

Lobot smiles. It's hard, with the cybernetics, but he manages. _You seemed very occupied with your caf._

Lando curses. Lobot always claims that his malfunctioning cybernetics have left him with no personality, but at times like this, he very much doubts it. 

*** 

He finds Bodhi on the lowest flat section of the roof, sitting at the very edge, looking up. His flightsuit makes him a dark cutout against the sky, like the shadow puppets Lando had loved as a child. 

"What are you doing out there?" he yells, from the safety of the windowsill. 

Bodhi jumps slightly, then relaxes. "Watching the clouds," he yells back. "That one looks like a rancor." 

"Can you come in?" Lando yells back. One uncareful slip, and Bodhi could go tumbling over the edge. It wouldn't be all the way back down to the planet, but at this height, that wouldn't matter. 

"Why? I'm not afraid of heights." 

"I don't think the ground cares whether or not you're afraid of it!" 

It's at least thirty feet down to the nearest terrace. That's assuming he hits a terrace. That's assuming he's lucky. And, from what Lando knows about the man, he's been pushing his luck for a long time. 

Bodhi laughs. Lando hadn't entirely meant it as a joke. 

"Look, as long as you're here, I have a responsibility to keep you safe. And I can't do that when you're crawling around on rooftops like some godsdamn vriprock." 

Bodhi hesitates. 

"Think of it as a personal favour. Please." 

Bodhi stands up, making the situation even more terrifying. Lando almost has to squeeze his eyes shut, watching him walk back over to the window. Up here, his swaying pilot's walk isn't just distinctive; it's a terrifying health hazard. 

When he finally swings himself back through the window, Lando can feel his heart slowly starting to beat again. "My mother always taught me not to be rude to guests, but that was kriffing terrifying. You know, you can watch the clouds from inside, I promise." 

Bodhi looks away, out into the blue. "I was just out there for fresh air." He smiles, awkwardly. "I don't like feeling shut in." 

"Well, if that's all you need, I'll arrange a tour of the city tomorrow, so you can get air without scaring me shirtless." 

Bodhi clears his throat. "I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, Baron Calrissian, but I'm not sure I'd trust any of your people to accompany me. Imperial bounty, and all that." 

"I'll do it, then," Lando says. "I like showing the city off. And I'd rather spend a little time on a walk than watch one of my guests plummet off the roof of my house to their death." 

This time, Bodhi laughs. "I'm a pilot! I'm not going to fall!" 

Lando takes a deep breath and manages not to say anything sarcastic. He's a guest, after all. 

*** 

The more the day goes on, the more irritated Lando gets. He's very good at hiding it, he doesn't want any of his people to think it's their fault, after all. But he's got a throbbing tension headache that makes even the quiet noise of the mining drills impossible to tolerate. 

He doesn't know how Vader expects him to do his job running the city and keeping an eye out for his guests to make sure they don't escape. Well, at least he has help. 

"Hello, Ms. Pavan." 

Jax Pavan has worked as his Head of Hospitality for a year and yet she still jumps at the sound of his voice. He'd felt terrible about it, at first, until he'd realized she did it with everyone: guests, her co-workers, her subordinates, and, on one memorable occasion, a protocol droid. 

"What can I help you with, sir?" 

Lando sighs on the inside. He's tried to stop the Mirialan woman from calling him "sir" at first, but the idea of calling him by his first name was clearly so discomfiting to her that he didn't bother anymore. 

"I just wanted to ask ... Listen, you know the guests staying with me, right." 

She nods. "Yessir." 

"Ms. Pavan, is there any way we can have only droids attending them? Just droids, no organics." 

She frowns. "Only droids?" she says. "The hospitality droids have all been excellently trained, sir. But most people are uncomfortable if there are no organics attending. And, sir, I personally prefer to attend to high-ranking guests myself." 

"I'll be entertaining them," Lando says, "I promise. Other than that, I'd rather..." 

Well, he'd rather not drag anyone else into this mess with him. The fewer people who know about the rebels, the fewer people who will need to worry about them. Lobot's the only person who knows who they actually are, and that's only because Lobot would be able to figure it out in less than a minute with his connections to the mainframe. 

"No, that's fine, sir." 

Lando studies her face. She's a difficult read, but Lando likes to fancy himself decent with people. "Ms. Pavan, you look like you have something you want to ask me." 

She ducks her head to the ground. "Yessir. Just ..." she smoothes invisible wrinkles out of her long skirt, "May I ask the reason for the secrecy? I understand that sometimes, a guest needs to be private, but in my position, it would be helpful to know why that is. If that's alright with you. Sir."

Lando runs through the possibilities in his head. Vader hadn't given him a cover story for the presence of known rebels in his (again, neutral!) city. That was probably another thing he was just supposed to handle himself.

"Yes, of course. It's my ex-partner," he says, which is partly true. "For obvious reasons, privacy is important." 

Mirialans don't blush, or at least not that Lando can see. But he swears that he can see the green around her cheeks deepen, swallowing her tattoos.

"I am so sorry," she says, holding her hands behind her back. "I didn't know..."

"Don't worry about it," Lando says. "It's been a long time. Just slipstream under the wings, at this point." 

"I understand, sir," she says, already starting to back away towards the door. "Let me know if there's anything I can do." 

_Yeah_ , thinks Lando, _you could tell me what the all hells to do about this situation._

"Nothing, it's all fine," he says, in what's probably his biggest lie of the day. 

*** 

Lando paces the corridors of the baronial palace. 

Honestly, he'd expected Vader to have come by now. Instead, there had been radio silence from the Imperial ship, leaving him with nothing to do but watch and worry. Tish Calrissian had taught him the importance of keeping his hands busy, and even now, he's twitchy in the absence of chores or jobs to do. 

The city, usually so full of distractions and things needing his attention, is working traitorously smoothly tonight. No cave-ins, no break-ins, not even any big arguments at one of his casinos.

Han and Leia had been reserved at the dinner, and Bodhi hadn't been at all. Lando's main conversation of the night had been with Chewie, talking about engine parts. 

He wanders down to the bar, to see if there's at least a bar fight he should be attending to, or someone's pocket getting picked who would take it very badly.

But the bar is almost silent. Just a few mining administrators who nod when he walks in, and Bodhi Rook, sitting without a drink in front of him.

"Fancy meeting you here," Lando says, and Bodhi jumps, then smiles. 

"What kept you away from dinner tonight. Found more interesting company?" 

Bodhi laughs. It makes him look younger. 

"Sleep. You know, they say a true pilot thinks of nothing but flying, but I can tell you that most of us think about sleeping a lot. My friend Tycho once slept for seventy-two hours face-down on the floor of his x-wing before anyone went looking for him." 

Lando tries to study him without giving out that it's what he's doing. He looks almost at ease, almost. But he has his back against the wall, and his eyes are casually darting around the room. 

Lando gestures at the stool next to him. "Mind if I join you?" 

If he's going to be hosting the man for the indefinite future, he might as well do a decent job of it. 

Bodhi tilts his head to the side, and then nods. 

Lando flags down the bartender. "I'll take a Krayt Sour, heavy on the lime. And for my friend here..." 

Bodhi waves him off. "Nothing for me, thanks." 

"You sure? It's on the house." 

"I'm on too many antirejection drugs right now." His left arm clinks when he taps it, and Lando realizes that it's a cybernetic, a beautiful black piece of hardware, almost as good as Imperial make. "The meddroids back on base would kill me." 

Lando's never had any cybernetics installed, but he knows from his experience with Lobot that most don't require you to abstain. It's a polite brush-off, a way of refusing without offending. 

"All right, then. Two virgin Krayt sours. After all, what kind of host would I be if I drank while my guest couldn't?" 

Also, he'd prefer not to be drunk while his 'guest' is sober. 

"So," he says, after the bartender is gone and they're left in relative quiet. "What do you think of Cloud City's hospitality so far?" 

Bodhi laughs. "I'm sorry, I don't have much of a comment. I've been sleeping for most of the last day. I'll let you know when I know more." 

He notices the looks Bodhi is slipping at the sabacc game to his left, a game that one of Lando's aides is losing very badly to a senior mining official. "You play?" 

Bodhi gives him a strange, sidelong smile. "Not much anymore." 

"I've got my cards here. Wanna play? I'll go easy on you, if you're rusty." Lando has always found a game of sabacc almost as useful to learn about someone as watching the way they walk. "We don't need to play for credits; I'm not the kind of man to cheat a guest out of his savings." 

Bodhi puts a hand to his chest, mock-offended. "What, are you afraid to lose?" 

Lando laughs. "Fine, then. But just ten credits each for the first round." 

He slides his cards out of his pocket, deals five card chips to both of them. He's done it so many times that his hands can think for him, leaving his mind free to wander. 

"So, you're _the_ Bodhi Rook, then?" 

He talks just quietly enough that no one should be able to hear over the background noise, leaning in a little as he deals Bodhi's card chips. 

Bodhi examines his card chips, nods slightly, and looks up. "If you mean the one in all the wanted holos, then yes." 

Lando doesn't have a great hand, but he has a lucky one; he's got the Commander of Staves, which he always privately thinks of as his card when he does sabacc readings. _A messenger on a fool's errand_ , it means, _someone with the will of the world against them. ___

__"You're even more handsome in person." Maybe flirting will work, maybe it won't. It's a decent enough conversational strategy._ _

__Bodhi picks up his first chip from the middle pile, laughing slightly. "I should hope so. I look like a corpse in the holos. It's the identification photo they took after I'd come back from a three-day transport trip, I'd been awake so long at that point that I was hearing colours."_ _

__Ah, okay. Not flirting, then. Either the man's oblivious, he doesn't know how to respond, or he knows what's going on and he's deliberately choosing to be like this. Could be any or all of them._ _

__Lando looks down at his cards and tries again."So, Mr. Rook, are the rumours true?"_ _

__Bodhi slides his discard card across the bar, with the hand that isn't a cybernetic. He has lovely fingers, like a gliz mandolinist, but his nails are ragged. "Which ones?"_ _

__Lando struggles to think of the least ridiculous ones. "I've heard that you're a runaway intelligence agent, that your backstory's faked. That you're a cyborg with complicated human skin grafts. They say you're really more than one person, or that you're a wizard like the old Jedi, with the power to get people to do what you want."_ _

__Bodhi laughs, clearly delighted. "Oh! The Jedi rumour is a new one, I haven't heard that yet." He looks up at the ceiling. Well, I can tell you, I'm not a Jedi, and I'm not Intelligence, and last time I checked, I was human." He shuffles through his cards, and Lando ignores the bleed at the edge. "Wait, where did you hear the Jedi one?"_ _

__Lando stops to think for a moment, shuffling his card chips. "Off an Imperial officer at one of my casinos."_ _

__Yeah, he remembers it now, mostly because it had been weird that an Imperial officer was encouraging False Talk and Despondency like that. Then again, the man had been awful, sloppy drunk, the kind of drunk you can only really be if you know that everyone's too afraid of you to hurt you._ _

__Bodhi grins. "You can't believe everything Imperials say." He shakes his head "A Jedi. That's a good one."_ _

__"And the Kessel Mine breakout? I heard that was you, but now I'm not sure if I trust my sources." He looks down at his cards. You need to give the mark that little bit of distance, so they don't feel like you're chatting them up for information. "Or is that top secret?"_ _

__He's nowhere close to a 23, but that doesn't really matter. The game's not really about the game anyway._ _

__Bodhi shrugs. "It's no secret, really. Yes, I was involved. But all I really did was talk to some people."__

Lando blinks. "You just _talked to some people._ " 

__The breakout had been a disaster for Imperial propaganda, at least twenty high-ranking political prisoners released. And Bodhi Rook's fingerprints had been all over it._ _

__"Then, if you'll pardon me asking, how do you do it? Because I like to fancy myself good with people, but even I'm not 'convince a high-ranking officer at the kriffing Kessel Mines to defect' good."_ _

__Bodhi looks up from his cards, amused. "There's really … listen, it's not as impressive as you think. There's no big secret or anything. Really."__

__Lando rolls his eyes. "The whole galaxy's going crazy trying to figure you out! You can't just leave me hanging like that!"_  
_

__Bodhi looks over his cards and smiles, slightly. "Okay, then. You know when something's true, but you can't let yourself think about it? It's true, you know it's true, but," he snaps his fingers a few times, clearly looking for the words, "if you let yourself think about it, you'll collapse?"_ _

__Lando shifts in his seat, looking away over the quiet crowd in the bar. "Sure."_ _

__"Back home, we called that a NaJedha truth, something that's too bright to look at directly." He bites his lip, looking down at his hand. "Most people who work for the Empire have NaJedha truths. It's the only way you can keep going."_ _

__"Oh," Lando says, not sure what else to say. It's loud in the bar, and Bodhi's voice is pitched low, but that doesn't stop him worrying._ _

__Okay, he's got a 20 now, better play it safe and discard from now on._ _

__Bodhi shrugs. "Most of the time, it's as simple as forcing them to look at whatever they're ignoring." He places his cards facedown, counting off on his fingers. "Lasan, Geonosis, Kashyyyk, Alderaan, Lothal. Jedha. Everyone knows a tragedy."_ _

__He looks up at Lando's perturbed expression. "Well, you asked!"_ _

__"I guess I did," Lando says, hesitating before picking up the last card on the middle pile. Is the man just _always_ like this? "Say, I think we've made it through all the cards. What's your hand?" _ _

__"A twenty-two," Bodhi says, turning his cards around so Lando can see them._ _

__"Damn," Lando says. "I'm at a twenty. Good game."_ _

__He slides the hand pot across the table to Bodhi. Bodhi slides the hand pot back with all the credit chips in it. "Double the stakes?"_ _

__"You don't even know what your cards are yet! No, we're playing for ten again. I'm not cheating a guest!"_ _

__Five cards to him, five cards to Bodhi, and he's watching Bodhi the whole time. He's picking up a feel for Bodhi's tells, or at least he thinks he is. If he's right, then he doesn't have great starting cards, probably a bunch of ones and twos.__

____  
Bodhi licks the corner of his lip, picks up his first card. “You’re a cautious gambler.”  


__It’s not a criticism, or at least, it doesn’t sound like one. But it makes Lando feel strangely defensive nonetheless._ _

__“I don’t like to wager anything I couldn’t lose,” he says, eyes down on his cards. “My mother always taught me not to bet deeper than my pockets.”_ _

__Bodhi drops a card, eyes flickering between the card and Lando. “I’m just surprised. You don’t often get risk-shy smugglers. Or, ex-smugglers, I guess.”__

____  
He's got a nineteen already. One more good card, and he's liable to win.  


__“Ex-smuggler, yeah, with an emphasis on the ex. I’m one hundred percent legitimate these days.” And it’s true, it really is. Ignoring black-market casinos in his city doesn’t count._ _

__Bodhi licks his lips. “Sorry, I know you’re Baron Administrator, but what does that really mean?"_ _

__Lando tries to take a sip of his drink, noting, to his disappointment, that it’s almost empty. “Well, it means I’m in charge of this mouldering pile until such time as someone wins it off me or it falls out of the sky.”_ _

__"Mmm," Bodhi says, looking down at his chips. “Is the city Rebellion-affiliated?”_ _

__Lando almost chokes, and forces himself not to spit out his drink. It's good, and he shouldn't waste it just because someone asked him a damn fool question _in public_. _ _

__"What," he manages, finally, "what kind of question is that?"_ _

__Bodhi smiles crookedly. "An honest one?" It's a nice smile, and Lando has to admit that he's handsome, even if he's a handsome idiot._ _

__“Look, Bodhi, Mr. Rook, can I ask you kind of a personal question? You're … you're a spy, right?"_ _

__Bodhi shuffles through his cards. "When I have to be."_ _

__"Then …" Lando struggles for the nicest possible way to put it, because his mother had also taught him to be polite. "I mean, if you'll pardon me asking, Mr. Rook, do you always go asking these kinds of questions? I mean, I’d think it might be an occupational hazard, being this open. As a spy, and all.”_ _

__“Ah, so you’re wondering how I can be a spy when I won't shut up?" Bodhi says, discarding his last chip._ _

__"I," Lando says, and what the hells is he supposed to say to that? "What's your hand?"_ _

__"You win this round, Baron Calrissian. I went flat over. Hit twenty-five pretty early, actually."_ _

__He pushes the hand pot back towards Lando, credit chips clinking at the bottom._ _

__"Bet you're glad I played it safe now," Lando says._ _

__Bodhi shrugs. “Oh, I’ve lost a lot over the years. Sometimes you just need to play a losing game.”_ _

__“If you say so,” Lando says, doubtfully._ _

__In the middle of game number three, Bodhi looks up at Lando thoughtfully. “"I'm getting bored of playing for credits. Can we up the stakes?"_ _

__Lando marvels, not for the first time, at the man's audacity. He's biting his lip a little, which is one of his tells, letting Lando know he doesn't have great cards. Not only that, the last few looks he's cast down at his cards have come up short. There's no way the man has a single card above an eight, and Lando's at twenty already._ _

__"Sure about that? I don't want to take advantage."_ _

__"Who said anything about taking advantage? I'm offering." Bodhi grins. "Besides, I really like the look of your cape. It looks warm."_ _

__"Fine, if you're going to play it like that, I'll wager it against your jacket." It's woolen, more utilitarian than stylish, but Lando figures he can always give it back after an acceptable interlude._ _

__"All right. You've got a deal."_ _

__Lando plays the next few rounds in silence, trying to think of something to say that won't end up awkward. Bodhi is restless in his seat, although Lando can't tell if that's because of his hand or just the way he is._ _

__It's with a vast sense of relief that he picks up the final three needed for pure sabacc, a game-ender. It's … well, it's not that Bodhi makes him nervous, but there's something disconcertingly clear about his eyes, as though he really wants to get to know you. Lando doesn't trust people who want to know him._ _

__He flips his cards around so Bodhi can see them. "Pure sabacc, what about that?"_ _

__"Oh, that's too bad."_ _

__Bodhi lays his hand out on the table, fanning out the cards with a twitch of his fingers. An Idiot, a two, and a three. A kriffing Idiot's Array._ _

__Bodhi grins, and it's knife-edged. "Game over, Baron Calrissian."_ _

__"Why you..." He shakes his head, absolutely floored. He'd had no idea, hadn't seen any tells. Hells, he didn't even know how long Bodhi had been hanging on to that hand!_ _

Bodhi starts laughing, helplessly. "If you look way back into my criminal record," he chokes out, "back past all the convictions for espionage and treason and destruction of Imperial property," oh, the bastard's actually _fanning_ himself, "you'll find one for illegal gambling. I've been playing for money since I was fifteen." 

__Lando shakes his head, awed despite himself. "I thought you said you were a rookie!"_ _

__"Oh, I never said that. I said I haven't played in years, but that's because everyone on the base knows better by now." He shuffles the deck together, losing all the clumsiness of his movements before._ _

__"As one of my friends always tells me, it's not a terrible thing if people underestimate you. It just means you've got the element of surprise when you take them out at the knees and steal their wallet. Speaking of, I think you owe me something."_ _

He twitches two fingers of his cybernetic hand at Lando, his little victorious grin doing stupid things to Lando's stomach. It should not be kind of hot that the man had kicked his ass at sabacc. It should _absolutely_ not be kind of hot that the man had kicked his ass at sabacc. 

__Slowly, grudgingly, Lando unclips his cape from around his shoulders. If Han sees the man wearing Lando's cape, he'll know what happened, and Lando will never live it down. He might as well just die now and save himself the embarrassment later._ _

__"Thank you," Bodhi says, folding it up with exaggerated care and tucking it into his shoulder bag. Once that's done, he looks up at Lando, face turned serious for a moment. "About your earlier question. I can hide when I want to. I can lie when I want to. I just … I don't want to anymore"_ _

__Lando shakes his head, smiling despite himself. "Well, I'm going to retire for the night, before you win my entire city off me. Good game, Mr. Rook."_ _

__When they shake hands, Bodhi's cybernetic is warm to the touch, warmer than flesh would be._ _

__Lando nods to him and then walks off with as much dignity as possible, for a man missing his cape._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to write this dynamic is that Bodhi and Lando have ... very different ideas about conversations and how to do them. 
> 
> side note: this is probably the only written work where the "works cited" includes both Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and the Wookiepedia page on Jizz Music (with apologies to Mr. Solzhenitsyn)


	3. Chapter 3

There's one thing that's clear as they move through the levels of Cloud City. Bodhi Rook is not impressed. 

Oh, sure, he's nodding, and complimenting the place on its architecture. He's the absolute model of a polite guest. But he's not _impressed_ impressed. He doesn't have the absolute mouth-falling-open awe that Lando had on seeing this city for the first time, the sense that it was a holy place in a way that had nothing to do with religion. Lando is annoyed by that, for reasons that are embarrassing even in the privacy of his own head. 

Also, he's already taken off the hooded jacket Lando had given him at the beginning of the walk. One of the most recognizable fugitives in the Empire, and he's walking around with the arms of the jacket tied around his waist, his face bare. 

"You sure you won't consider..." he tries, again, and Bodhi laughs. 

“I’ll put it back on the second I see troopers, I promise,” he says, hand over his heart. His arms are bare, too, and his non-cybernetic arm is more well-muscled than Lando had expected.

“You won’t, then,” Lando says. “No troopers in the city.”

Bodhi stops, turns towards him, head tilted to the side. “No troopers in the city,” he repeats, and that’s more interest than Lando’s seen in his face all day. 

“None,” Lando says, firmly. “I mean, I lose a lot of money on the tibanna I import Imperial for it, but that’s what I’m paying for. No boots on the ground.”

It may be the only place in the galaxy he can keep the troopers out of, but he's damn well going to do it.

Bodhi tightens the arms of the jacket around his hips, and Lando frowns. “That doesn’t. I still think you should put it back on!”

He grins, the nicest smile Lando’s seen from him yet. “Not a chance,” he says, cheerfully mercenary. “Wait, are we still in the core district?" 

Oh, gods, his feet have gone into Ordinary Strolling Mode, and he's inadvertently walked them to the residential district. Well, technically, one of the residential districts. But this one's the one Lando actually knows. 

It's not that Bespin's permanent residents have their own area of the city, it's just that ... if you're the kind of person who wants to stay and mine a backwater colony for years at a time, you probably get along well with people who want to do the same thing. 

"I'm sorry," he says. "I got us into the residential district. Not exactly prime tourist area." 

Bodhi looks around. "I like it," he says. 

The buildings here are more irregular, the sleek perfection of the core district swapped for laundry lines strung between the houses and numbers painted on the sliding doors. It's Lando's favourite part of the city to walk through, when he doesn't have guests.

Lando snorts. "Oh, you say you like it now, but wait till we've been stuck here for an hour." 

"What do you mean?" Bodhi asks. 

"You'll see."

Like clockwork, the first person comes up to him moments later. Well, the first people. Jeena and Tardan Wiik are inseparable when they aren't down in the mines, so he shouldn't be too surprised at finding them together. 

"Boss!" Jeena yells, throwing a hand in the air. "Good to see you. I've been telling El'thyn that we need to replace our L22s for weeks now, and this laserbrain doesn't agree with me."

Tardan rolled his eyes, an impressive display in a Rodian. "The L22s are really good ships, Jeena. I don't care if they're old, they came out before all that preplanned obsolescence crap the big corporations do these days!"

"And you'll be saying they're good until rust wears right through the helm!" She punches his shoulder, affectionately, but hard. "You're the worst kriffing skinflint this side of the Delfox Nebula!"

Lando throws his hands in the air. "I'm trying to show a guest around! Honestly, both of you." 

"Oh, sorry. What's his name?" Jeena asks. 

"He's ..." and Lando realizes that he hasn't got an alias for Bodhi, hadn't even thought to work one out. 

"Joreth Sward," Bodhi says, and reaches out to shake hands. "Very pleased to meet you." 

"Well, Mr. Sward, Do you have an opinion on the L22s?" Tardan asks. 

Lando groans theatrically, but he grins to see a little head popping out from behind Tardan. There aren't many kids in Cloud City. It's a city of miners, and miners don't often bring family. The few kids there are get spoiled rotten.

"I see you're still keeping the little one around," Lando says, like he always says when he sees Keer. "She still want to be a mechanic?" 

Tardan sighs. "Why don't you tell him what you want to be now, _kadua_?"

"I'm gonna be Baron when you die," Keer says, very sincerely. "I'm going to make more parks, and more ice cream shops, and there's only going to be one rotation of school a week." 

Lando nearly bites his tongue off trying not to laugh. "Well, at least I know I'm leaving the city in good hands." 

Keer looks over at Bodhi. "Why don't you have an arm?" she asks. 

Tardan goes through all five stages of grief in under a second, and Jeena looks like she's about to speak up. 

"It fell off. That happens sometimes," Bodhi says, shrugging. 

"Oh. Will my arm fall off?"

"Not if you stay away from explosions."

"Okay," Keer says, placated. "Can we go for ice cream later?" she asks Tardan. 

"I am so sorry," Jeena whispers to Bodhi as they walk past him. Lando can't catch Bodhi's response, because Duqua Fesh is in front of him, arms crossed, tapping the fingers of one hand against an impressive bicep.

"Hey Boss," the older woman says. "Long time no see. Listen, you never followed up on the invitation that Jekaria and I sent. Are you coming round for dinner or do I have to drag you there myself?"

"You know Lobot's stopped passing invitations along to me since what happened at the last quadrant party. It took fifteen cycles to repair the firework damage." He remembers himself. "Duqua, this is Joreth Sward. He's a guest of mine." 

The zabrak woman pumps Bodhi's hand so enthusiastically that Lando's temporarily afraid it'll fall off. "Wonderful to meet you! Any friend of the Baron's a friend of mind."

They get another half-block before they meet up with Sej Tekka, and then Lin Devwak, and then Falroon Lecario. Lando can't move a foot here without off-shift miners wanting to talk to him about the haul for the day, or arguing with him about airspeed regulations, or just wanting to shoot the breeze. And, of course, school's out, so the children are underfoot, and Lando has to beg out of three separate games.

When they get to a relatively quiet part of the street, where Lando has gone at least five minutes without being accosted, he turns to Bodhi.

"Not bored, Mr. Rook? I won't be offended if you want to duck out."

He has to repeat himself, because Bodhi is lost in thought. Lando follows his gaze; there's nothing unusual, just a set of Nabberian prayer flags flapping against the side of a house, a bloom of colour against the white. "What's the matter?" 

Bodhi shakes himself, looking Lando in the eye. "I was just thinking. You have a good city here."

As so often has happened with Bodhi in the last few days, he doesn't understand. He pastes his incomprehension over with sarcasm. 

"Huh, what gave it away? The fact that you can't get a moment's peace if you're anywhere except your own home? The fact that half the people here brew bantha-piss Krayt in their quarters? The fact that the last kid we talk to, as I live and breathe, tried to cheat both of us out of credits at the tender age of nine?"

“The people,” Bodhi says, quietly. "They aren’t afraid.”

And doesn’t that just stop Lando right in his tracks.

“Back home,” he pauses, takes a breath, continues, “people never looked like that. Even when the patrols weren't around."

Lando swallows. He still remembers the patrols, the way his mother stretched up towards the sky when they came around, as if to hide him in her shadow. 

"They always used to say that Jedha City's main import was Stormtroopers and its main export was fear and civil disobedience. It's funnier in Jedhashi, of course."

It takes a moment for Lando to realize the full weight of what he's said. Oh gods, _Jedha City_.

Lando doesn't even like to think about it. The official report said that Jedha City had been destroyed in a mining accident, when everyone knew that the Empire had blown up Alderaan days later. You got to wondering, as the baron of a mining city, what other kind of mining accidents might happen if you weren't careful.

"You're from Jedha?" he asks. Sure, he knows how much the Holy City's destruction had shocked the galaxy. He’d just never really thought of it as someone’s _home_. But everywhere is someone’s home, he thinks, every dark spot on the map.

Bodhi nods, face tight. "Please don't say sorry. Or that you understand." He pauses for a moment, within earshot of the Takali kids, who are having a spirited argument about goalposts. "Or that you can't possibly understand. I don't want to ... can we just see more of the city?" 

There's a yearning in his voice that makes Lando's stomach twist painfully. 

"Of course." 

Bodhi smiles, a nice smile even if it runs sad at the edges, and goes silent. 

Behind him, Lando can hear the Takalis shouting, seemingly unaware of how loud they're being.

Arik Ganene, the city's only teenage Zeltron, walks past them, obviously stuffing his fistfuls of deathsticks into his pockets at the sight of Lando. He gives them a cool head nod, or what would be a cool head-nod if his hand wasn't obviously jammed into his bulging vest pocket.

They aren't even good deathsticks. They're homemade, and probably cut with enough larissate that they wouldn't even give you a buzz. 

Lando makes eye contact with Bodhi, whose lip is quivering. They wait a respectable half-block before bursting into laughter.

"See, I told you," Bodhi gasps. "The wonders of a free city."

And it's almost enough to make Lando forget that the city isn't as free as Bodhi thinks.

*** 

"...and then, and this is the best part, he looked at the officer very solemnly and said, "May the Force of others be with you," right before his husband shot him in the back." 

Lando nearly spits out his ice cream. "Really?" he manages, after a moment. "You're kidding me."

The Hood Family Creamery is a local favourite, to-die-for ice cream making up for the peeling floor tiles and garishly-patterned swivel chairs. It's a busy place in the afternoon, loud enough that they can talk without being overheard. That's a good thing because, as it turns out, Bodhi is a font of questionably-true stories about the Rebellion. 

Bodhi puts a hand over his heart, taking on an expression of affected innocence. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

He swings back and forth on his swivel stool, taking a lick of his ice cream. Bodhi, Lando thinks, is always in motion, even when he's sitting still.

Dresk pops his head over the counter. The Besalisk head chef is wearing one of his many ridiculous aprons, with loth cats printed on it in horrible colours. "How's the ice cream?"

Bodhi smiles. "It's great! I've never had denta bean ice cream before." 

Bodhi had stubbornly insisted on paying for his own ice cream, even after Lando had offered several times, probably more times than was polite. At least he seems to be enjoying it.

Dresk nods. "Glad to hear it. This bastard here," he jerks a thumb at Lando, "always says it's appalling." 

"No, Dresk, it's your aprons that are _appalling_ , the ice cream is _adequate_. As always. My compliments to the chef." 

"Like I said. Bastard." Dresk flounces away, with all the daintiness you can expect from a seven-foot-tall lizard, and Bodhi stifles a laugh behind his hand. 

Over by the till, the Wiik family are buying ice cream too. Keer waves at Lando, and he gives her a finger-gun salute. He's never really sure how to act around kids.

When he looks back, Bodhi's looking at him with the same curious expression from earlier. "Do you know everyone in the city?"

Lando shrugs. "Not everyone. But permanent residents, yeah." His comm buzzes against his wrist, and he holds up two fingers. "Just a sec." 

The voice comes wobbling over the line. "Hello, sir."

Only one person in the city actually calls him sir. "Hi, Ms. Pavan. Good to hear from you. What's up?" 

"Well, sir, we've had some trouble, sir." 

"Trouble?" Lando asks, more sharply than he means. "What do you mean by trouble?" 

"It's, it's the guests, sir. They're ... they're having a disagreement, sir." 

"Solo and Organa?" 

Bodhi drops his face into a hand. "I know how to deal with this," he says, exhaustion palpable in his voice. "Pass me the comm."

"Hi Ms. Pavan, I'm one of Lando's guests. Listen, was it something involving the words "princess," "nerf herder," and something about a bet involving half a bottle of Krayt?"

There's dead silence as Bodhi listens to whatever's happening on the other end of the line, and then, "No, they're always like this." A brief pause. "Yes, I know." 

"There's really nothing you can do. Just make sure they stay away from each other until they both calm down. Oh, and don't try to talk reason into either of them. For your sake." He licks his ice-cream cone, disconsolately. 

"Thank you for your help." He passes the commlink back to Lando, expression so comically mournful that Lando almost laughs.

"What was that all about?" he asks, after he's hung up.

"Not much," Bodhi says, morosely. "Just the last three years of my life. Is she – Ms. Pavan, that is – is she Coruscanti?"

It takes him a moment to catch up to Bodhi's mental jump. "Yeah, yeah she is. How'd you guess?"

Bodhi shrugs. "Well, the name helps, but ... well, you have to handle Coruscanti defectors very carefully. It's ... it's a hard planet to live on. Makes them twitchier than Loth rats in a barrel."

"She's doing her best," Lando says, defensively. "I know she comes off anxious, but you couldn't find a better hospitality expert in the whole sector! She's organized to within a hundredth of a second, she knows almost seventy languages, which is thirty more than me, and I'm pretty damn good, she's smart ... what's so funny?" 

Bodhi shakes his head, the corners of his mouth still twitching. "Nothing." 

"That doesn't look like nothing!"

His mouth relaxes into a smile. "I just ... you're different. Than I expected."

"And what does _that_ mean?"

Bodhi grins, licking a smudge of ice cream off his lower lip. "I thought spies were supposed to be able to keep secrets?" 

Lando rolls his eyes. "Be that way, then. Listen, I'm going to radio Jax in ten and, if the other two are still fighting, do you just want to stay out until they stop? If they're really so bad when they get going, I don't really want to get between them." 

Besides, talking to Bodhi is ... well, Lando's used to talking to politicians, and investors, and when forced to, Imperials. Talking to Bodhi is refreshing, like sticking your tongue to a blaster battery to see if it's charged. 

"Yes, please." Bodhi says, gratitude etched into his face, and Lando feels warm inside. Even after the ice cream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite canon Lando Fact is that he knows so little about kids that he considered giving baby Ben a blaster as his birthday gift. 
> 
> My favourite non-canon Lando Fact is that he's the kind of boss who buys you a really expensive, thoughtful birthday present and you think for a while that he maybe has a crush on you but no, he's just Like That.
> 
> Truly, I love him.


	4. Chapter 4

"Comms in the bucket," the sentinel droid says, in its implacable voice. "This archive is proud to be a comm-free zone."

Lando groans. "I forgot about that." He places his comm gingerly into the sentinel's outstretched flipper and then, after a moment's hesitation, puts in his second comm. 

"Third comm, Baron Calrissian?" 

Lando gasps. "I can't believe you'd accuse me of lying to you." He scans the droid's metallic face, looking for any hint of belief. "Oh, fine, here you go." He takes his third comm out of a pocket. "I hope you're happy." "

Thank you," the sentinel says, with a touch of smugness, and allows them to pass into the archive. 

Bodhi keeps glancing around him, taking in the high, domed ceiling, the light splintering through the skylight, the fountains down the broad centre aisle. 

"Welcome to the Bespin Archive. Third largest archive in the galaxy, head and shoulders above anywhere else in the sector." 

He's taken his guests on a few field trips over the last few days, from the casinos to the spacecraft hangers, but the Archive is pretty damn special. Leia and Chewie have accompanied them on most of the other trips, but Lando can't find it in his heart to feel sorry that they aren't there for this one. 

Han has not attended any of the other trips. Lando can't find it in him to be sorry about that, either.

"So, where to?" 

"Oh ... well, do you have a history section?" 

Lando tries not to sound smug. "No, we don't have _a_ history section. We've got several, organized by political significance and planetary distance from the Inner Rim. Why?" 

"Just a moment." 

Bodhi walks back to the sentinel droid at the door, holding his hands behind his back. "Um, hello. Do you have the datacron _No Word for Surrender: A Historiography of Mandalore?"_

The droid spits out the reference number, paper scrolling out of the hole in its stomach. 

Bodhi takes the receipt, holding it almost reverently by the tips of his fingers. Then, he looks back at Lando. "I can't believe it." 

"What, that we actually have datacrons here? I promise, this place isn't for show."

Bodhi rolls his eyes. "No, that you have ... you don't see history in most libraries today. Especially not Mandalorian history."

He scans the walls for the directional numbers, then starts walking towards the data walls, Lando picking up his pace a little to catch up. 

"Wait, then, how'd you get into it?"

Bodhi hops up onto the rim of the fountain, walks a few paces on the duracrete barrier, then jumps back down. "My mother was an academic, on Mandalorian religious history. In the Before, that is." 

Lando nods. There's always a Before, and an After, except for people too young to know anything but the After. 

"Just before the Imperials shut down the madrassa, she stole some of the datacrons, brought them home. She was afraid they'd be destroyed, otherwise. My sister and I would play with them, like blocks, before we really knew how to use them."

Lando smiles. The idea of a small Bodhi Rook building towers out of datacrons is charming. 

"Did you like reading?"

Bodhi pulls a face. "More than I liked school. But that's not saying much."

"You didn't like school?"

Bodhi laughs. "I was not very good at it. Every day it was, "Bodhi, please pay attention. Bodhi, now is not the time for questions. Bodhi, sit still for once in your life. Bodhi, don't ask that. Bodhi, would you like to be written up again?"'

The quote is delivered in such an obvious parody of a schoolteacher's voice that Lando has to stifle his laughter in a sleeve. Still, an umbaran scholar in one of the marble reading nooks looks at him reproachfully, and Lando whispers a quiet _sorry._

"My poor mother," Bodhi continues, slightly more quietly. "I would get written up for saying the wrong thing in Imperial History, and she would have to tell me that I wasn't wrong, but I shouldn't have said it."

Lando winces in sympathy. Tish Calrissian had spent the first ten years of his life teaching him to be honest, and the next seven, after the war ended, trying to undo the damage.

"Sometimes, I'm amazed that I made it to the Academy with my school record." He smiles, in a way that doesn't quite fit his face. "Then again, I was a pretty good pilot."

"Man, I'm still sorry you couldn't make it to the spacecraft hangar with us." It had been the trip Lando had been the most excited for Bodhi to go on and so, of course, the one he'd gotten sick the morning of. At least he'd recovered quickly.

Bodhi looks down at the scrap of paper, and back up at the wall. "Oh, it looks like the section's on the second floor," Bodhi says, peering down at the scrap of paper and back up at the wall.

"Staircase's this way," Lando says, touching Bodhi's shoulder to guide him. It's a thoughtless little moment of contact, the kind of courtesy he frequently extends. It still feels too intimate. 

At the top of the marble steps, Bodhi walks over to the edge of the second floor balcony, leaning out over the balustrade to look at the floor below.

Lando runs a hand through his hair. "I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, here, but aren't you at all afraid of heights?"

Bodhi smiles, jumping down. "Probably less than I should be." They settle into a nice rhythm, walking together. Lando's legs are just slightly longer than Bodhi's, but Bodhi walks a little quicker. "One of these times, I'm going to have to tell you about the time I was dared to fly an airspeeder upside-down through the city centre."

"You've got to be kidding me. And you did it?"

"Yes."

Lando gasps. "You juvenile delinquent!"

Bodhi looks down, smiling shyly. It's charming. 

"I'm afraid I'm making myself sound far more interesting than I actually was. I was only arrested the one time. They put me in the basement of the Terrabe for a night to scare me out of doing it again." He elaborates, at Lando's inquiring look. "The old Terrabe Madrassa, otherwise known as the Imperial holding cell. They used to say that the Terrabe Madrassa was the tallest building in Jedha City, because from its basement, you could see all the way to the Kessel Spice Mines."

Lando laughs. You have to laugh at that kind of joke, or you'll cry. "We said that, too, in Vakeyya. Only it was the old Jedi Academy." 

Bodhi stops, swivels on his heel. "Vakeyya. Does that mean you're Socorran?"

Lando forces a tepid smile. "When I have to be." 

Bodhi cocks his head. "I'm just asking because I know Socorro had a strong Separatist presence, and I was wondering if -"

"Isn't that the number we're looking for?" Lando says, pointing to an archway a few arches ahead.

Bodhi smacks his forehead. "Oh, thanks. I would've totally missed it!"

They turn down the narrow hallway, Lando squinting in the blue lights of the datacrons.

"What were we saying?"

"Can't remember," Lando lies.

"Eighty-three thousand, five hundred, and ninety-one, eighty-three thousand, five hundred and ninety-four, eighty-three, there it is."

He looks back at Lando. "Is this just one of the bar press systems?"

Lando nods, relieved.

Bodhi scans down the wall, pressing into one long strip of durasteel with two fingers of his flesh hand. A black datacron pops out of its depression on the wall, and Bodhi catches it with both hands. His cybernetic clinks against the metal. 

He winces. "I forgot about that. It opens in the Mandoan style, so I'm going to need to borrow your hands."

He tucks the datacron into the crook of his left arm, and reaches for both of Lando's wrists. 

"Wait, what?"

One of Bodhi's thumbs is resting right over his pulse point, and Lando prays that he hasn't noticed the sudden jump in tempo. 

"Sorry, sorry." Bodhi rolls his eyes. "It's stupid. The datacron opens old Mandoan-style, which means that you need two hands, one on each side, for the sensors. Accessibility was not the priority." He looks up, concerned. "Wait, is this okay?"

"Yeah," Lando says, trying for a cool, unbothered tone. "As long as I get them back afterwards."

He wouldn't mind terribly if he didn't. Bodhi's hands feel good around his wrists, a firm, gentle pressure.

After a moment of standing awkwardly silent, a blue pillar of light flickers into being between them. "No Word for Surrender: A Historiography of Mandalore," Lando reads, in the projected letters. "Sorry, it must be backwards for you."

He tries to shuffle himself around, but Bodhi laughs. "No, it's fine." He lets go of Lando's wrists, and Lando nearly drops the datacron, catching it just in time to make it look casual. "I just wanted to see if you had it. It's an older model, which means we'd be scrolling through five years of academic credits before we even got to the stories."

"The stories?"

"It's ... basically, it's a bunch of stories about Mandalorian folk heroes."

"Really," says Lando, trying not to sound too eager. As a kid, he'd collected stories like other kids would collect shiny bits of glass or discarded Imperial armour. He hadn't been as good a storyteller as his father, hadn't been able to make his voice go quite the same way. But they'd made his mother happy. "Did you have a favourite?"

Bodhi smiles in a way that makes Lando's face go warm. Bathed in the soft blue light, he looks like he's floating underwater.

"Well, I always liked the story of Jarabek Ashalti."

"Who?"

Bodhi laughs. "Okay, so he was this religious scholar, around the second Mandalorian Civil War, and he wrote a datacron saying that the Living Force was present in everyone. Really terrible idea at the time."

Lando folds his arms across his chest. "How bad?"

"In today's terms, it's about 'climbing up on top of the Imperial Palace with a lightsaber and shouting that Emperor Palpatine's a bastard'-level bad."

"Oh. _That_ bad."

"Exactly. So, they had him brought up in front of a military tribunal, got almost every other scholar in his field to testify against his theory, and told him that he had to denounce it."

"Did he?"

"Wait, wait, I'm getting to it! At the end, when they'd gotten everyone to testify against him, and they asked him for his statement, he just said, "Su bic oyacyi," which translates to -"

"Still, it remains," Lando says. Mando'a is one of his strongest languages; there are just too many Mandalorians in Bespin for it not to be. 

"Isn't that amazing?" Bodhi asks. "My sister and I loved it. We used to act it out, when we were at home. We'd take turns being Ashalti."

Lando hooks a thumb into his pocket."And? What happened after? To Ashalti, I mean."

"Oh, the tribunal had him executed afterwards. Horribly. Our mother had to make us stop acting it out, because our death scenes were getting too realistic."

Lando blinks. "You're just filled with cheerful stories, aren't you!"

Bodhi grins widely. "As I'm told. Frequently. By everyone." He looks down, tucking the datacron under his arm. There are still fine water droplets from the fountain hanging in his eyelashes, and they glitter in the blinking light of the datacrons. "What about you?"

"Pardon me?"

"Sorry, I mean, what was your favourite story?" Bodhi's no closer than he had been, leaning slightly against the wall, but he's suddenly too close, his eyes too intent even through his lazily half-dropped lips. "I know Socorro has a strong oral storytelling tradition, unless I'm getting it mixed up with another planet." He winces. "Which happens a lot, now."

He could tell Bodhi about the Judges of the Dead, the Bandit Emperor, the Asteroid Crown. He could tell Bodhi how it had felt to sit in their kitchen with the lights off during an Imperial patrol, his father's voice running over the smooth planes of an old story while he rubbed circles on the back of his mother's palm.

"I haven't got anything. Socorro's a slag heap. Sorry to disappoint."

Bodhi does look disappointed, and for a moment, Lando wishes he'd pushed past, told him something. He straightens up, and the pressure of his eyes on Lando dims slightly.

"Well, then, I guess you'll just have to put up with me talking about Mandalorian air fights for the rest of our visit."

***

When they get back to the front door after the tour, Lobot is standing near it, perfectly upright.

"Lobot," he says, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet library. "What's up?"

Lobot waits for him to take his wrist comm back from the sentinel droid. 

_I've been monitoring signals in and out of the city_ he says, _and someone has been trying to hail you on an I-51 commlink for the last quarter._

"I put my comms in the bin," Lando explains. "And I don't own a black I-51," Lando says, thoroughly confused now. "I-51s aren't even civilian-issue, they..."

And he remembers that he does have an I-51, or at least he does temporarily, and he remembers the one person who would be calling him on it.

"Oh. Right. That I-51," he says, and his voice comes from far away.

_If you'd like me to, I can patch you in on the call right here. Whoever it is seems insistent_

"No! I mean, no, don't bother. This one's private."

He darts a quick glance over at Bodhi, who seems to be occupied with his datacron, a delighted little smile on his lips.

"I'll wait to answer it until I get back to my office."

He takes the comm from the sentinel's flipper. It's buzzing slightly, and he holds it by the tips of his fingers, trying to touch it as little as possible.

"Sorry," he says, to Bodhi. "Business calls."

***

Lando lets the call signal repeat itself into the empty air as he locks his office door behind him. When he opens the commlink, Vader's life-sized avatar fades into being, raspy breathing loudly audible through the link. 

“Baron Calrissian. I cannot help but notice how long it took for you to receive this call,” is Vader’s opening salutation. He doesn't use a threatening tone; he doesn't need to use a threatening tone. He _exists_ in a threatening tone.

Lando fights off a shudder. Talking to Darth Vader makes you feel all wrong inside, like someone's gone into your house and rearranged all the furniture, left blaster holes in the walls. It makes you feel cold.

“Yes. That's because, since I'm keeping this deal a secret, I actually need to keep it _secret_. Projecting the Empire's top enforcer all over the walls of my city is probably not the best way to do that."

Vader is silent, and for a moment, Lando wonders if he’s gone too far.

"While the sentiment is appreciated, Calrissian, the tone is not. Consider this a warning.”

Lando clenches his jaw, teeth creaking against teeth. He can't afford to talk back to Vader, no matter how much he might want to. It's not only his own life hanging in the balance.

“Tell me about your guests. I wish to know more about them, and what they know of Skywalker.”

When talking to Imperials, Lando remembers, you're supposed to meet the eyes of their helmets, speak calmly, and, most importantly, not tell an ounce more of the truth than what they drag out of you.

“Well, like I said, there are four of them: the two smugglers, the princess, and a pilot."

Vader folds his arms across the panels of his chest. “And what do they say of the Skywalker boy?”

At least his guests haven't said much about him; that means there's less to betray.

“He’s a good pilot. Even Han, uh, Solo, that is, thinks he's good."

"Good," Vader says, and Lando blinks. Is he just that delighted to have a worthy adversary? Lando's heard that some Imperials enjoy that kind of thing.

“He’s okay with a blaster, better with his laser sword." 

"Lightsaber," Vader says. His voice is the same bare monotone as always, but his presence in Lando's head twists enough to let him know that the man is annoyed.

"Lightsaber," Lando repeats, not bothering to add an apology. What did it matter to him what the Jedi's weapon was called?

“And what of his use of the Force?”

"You probably know more than I do," Lando says. "I don't know anything more than what I've heard from reports."

The reports that said Luke had landed an impossible shot down the Death Star's only design flaw, that he knew things about people before he'd even spoken to them, that he could move silent and unnoticed. The kind of thing they say about Vader, but flipped on its head.

Vader seems irritated. "I had hoped to hear more of the Skywalker boy's Force use. What other developments have occurred?" 

"Nothing," Lando says, and he knows his bluffing face is good, but is it good enough against Darth Vader? Bodhi Rook isn't relevant here, he tells himself, it's all about whatever power struggle Vader has going on with the Skywalker kid. "Nothing relevant, Lord Vader."

Vader's presence in the air takes on a harsh, discordant note, like a vibroblade scraping the outside of a ship. There's a bead of sweat collecting at Lando's left temple, and at any move, it might roll down and give up the game.

"I am glad to hear that. I would hate for you to disappoint me."

Something inside feels like it's got cracks through it, but he presses on. "You'll let me know when you're coming down to the city, right? I just ... again, we're officially neutral. A full Imperial fleet would compromise that. Your bargain doesn't help me if I get attacked by the Rebellion afterwards."

Besides, the extra time might give him ... well, time to think of something to do about Bodhi. He has Vader's guarantee that his guests will be allowed to stay in the city, free from harm. But he isn't sure whether or not Bodhi is included in that guarantee.

"You are in no position to make demands, Baron Calrissian. But, yes, my ship will hail your command central, so you know to bring the prisoners to me."

And he switches off the holotransmitter even before Lando has a chance to say goodbye.

Lando lies down on the cot in the corner, looking blankly up at the ceiling. He feels cold, and he wraps his blanket around his shoulder, almost like his missing cape.

Kemno Calrissian had told Lando stories about Vader when his mother wasn't around, when the words didn't make her eyes go blank and empty. In the stories, Vader had been a war droid, a magician, a nightmare, the most terrifying of his father's shadow puppets.

He shudders, wrapping the blanket even more tightly around himself. It's even worse than it had been last time he'd talked to Vader, the cold so lodged in his bones he's afraid it'll never leave. He drifts off into an uneasy half-sleep.

***

Lando wakes up halfway off his bed, sliding onto the polished floor of his office. His sheets are clammy, and he balls them up to throw down the chute that leads to the central refresher. He can't remember his nightmare.

It's his comm that's woken him up, his real comm, ringing at his bedside. Aw, kriff, and it's another holocall, which means he has to look at least somewhat presentable.

He runs a hand through his hair, noticing that the sky is still light. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but he hadn't felt capable of much else after Vader's call. Gods, and there were people who had to talk to Vader _every damn day?_

"Hello, sir." Jax Pavan's slightly worried face fills the entirety of his vision, and Lando jumps back. 

"Ms. Pavan," he says, trying for a smile that doesn't look like it's scraped off the bottom of someone's boots. "What would you like to speak about on this lovely evening? Afternoon? Evening?"

It should be evening, at least, by the golden cast that the city has through his window. 

"Sir, your guests are wondering about you. It's, well, sir, it's dinner time, and they were wondering where you had gone."

A few minutes earlier, he'd thought he couldn't feel any colder, but the thought suddenly seems like a holdover from a more innocent age.

"Ah, yes, my guests," he says, holding onto his elbows to steady himself, bracing his arms against his overwhelming nausea.

His guests, who really weren't _guests_ at all. How had he forgotten that, even a little?

"Listen. Ms. Pavan. I know I asked you to be hands-off with them, but..." She looks even more worried than she already had. "I can't take on hosting them anymore. I'm too ... busy. Do you think you can?"

She brightens up immediately. "Of course, sir! I can absolutely do that. Does that mean I get access to their files?"

Only Jax Pavan would be excited at the idea of more work.

"Sorry, Jax. Ms. Pavan." He hits his palm gently against his head, trying to clear it. "That's too private."

"Oh. That's all right. Sir. Will that be all?"

"Yeah. Just ... listen," he asks. "You did your schooling on Coruscant, right?"

She looks alarmed.

"Yessir. Why, sir?"

"Just curious. How was it? Coruscant, that is."

Her face goes a shade of green as pale as any he's seen on her. "Can't complain, sir," she says, clearly thinking of any number of complaints she could make, if only it were possible. "It's a fine city. Sir."

He looks out over _his_ city, an island surrounded by the rough, dark sea of the clouds. It makes him dizzy, three million sentients floating above the clouds on a twenty-three percent tibanna cut and the edge of his easy smile. He’d seen a woman juggling plates once, in a marketplace on Nal Hutta, the white of the plates startling against the sky. At the time, he’d wondered how she kept all the plates spinning, how she kept them from hitting the ground.

"Thank you, Ms. Pavan," he says, trying not to shiver. "And let my guests know ... let them know I'm sorry."

When the holocall ends, he goes to find his blanket, only to remember that he's already tossed it down the chute. Instead, he goes to his desk, and sips listlessly at the cup of stale caf. He's not sleeping tonight anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Lando's perspective, his meeting with Vader is a reminder of the inescapable reach of authoritarianism. For Vader, his meeting with Lando is the equivalent of him anxiously asking his son's 1st grade teacher, "Is he cool? Does he have friends?"
> 
> (Jarabek Ashalti's story is loosely based on the story of how, after Galileo was forced to recant his theory that the Earth moves around the Sun in front of the Inquisition, he allegedly muttered "And yet it moves" - no matter what Authority says, the truth is the truth. Full disclosure: Galileo's story probably didn't actually happen, but I love it anyway.)


	5. Chapter 5

Lando sits at his desk, trying to convince himself that he's not doing what he thinks he's doing.

He shuffles the card chips. There's no point in shuffling, really; the electronic displays do that for him, glitching and twisting between cards when the value isn't locked. Still, the movement feels right to his hands.

He hasn't drawn the cards for himself in a long time. For other people, as a party trick, to win a few credits off someone he found particularly annoying. But not for himself. You only use the cards to make decisions when you're desperate.

He draws out a card from the top of the deck, puts it face down on the smooth desktop. _The first card stands for the one who draws_ , he remembers, _and the second card is what's standing in their way_.

The first one is his old standby, the Commander of Staves. The second is also the Commander of Staves.

 _Third card stands in for the subject's conscious motivations, fourth card represents their deeper ones_. Commander of Staves, again, and Commander of Staves.

Lando resists the urge to yell; the walls aren't totally soundproof. Instead, he calmly flips over the whole deck, fanned out across his desk. For just a moment, before the screens resolve back into their different suits and cards, they all display the Commander of Staves.

Well, that's just about the most useless hand he's ever pulled.

A loud buzz from the ceiling speaker makes him jump in his seat. Lobot's the only one with the intercom codes to his office, and he has made his opinion about sabacc readings abundantly clear to Lando.

There's another buzz, and Lando breathes in loudly, sighing it out. After a moment, he twitches his fingers at the speaker, tripping the communication system on.

"Lobot," he says. "This is not a good time." He shoves his cards over to the side, in case Lobot's going to try to initiate a holocall.

"Um," a voice says, so it's definitely not Lobot. "It's Bodhi."

Oh, good. Just what he needs today.

"Bodhi. How in the name of the Sith did you get my intercom codes?" Lando asks, buying time before he has to say anything else.

"Lobot told me," Bodhi says. "I wanted to talk to you, and he said you'd probably be up there if you weren't at breakfast."

Right. Lobot had seemed disappointed with Lando's decision to hole himself up in his office. He would have absolutely told the others how to find him.

"Are you feeling okay, by the way? Han said I shouldn't be worried, but -"

"No, I'm absolutely fine. Listen, is there anything you wanted my help with?"

Bodhi pauses for a moment too long for Lando's comfort before continuing. "We're trying to get in touch with a friend of ours, but apparently, the comm system on the Falcon isn't cutting it. Can you patch us into the city's comm? Lobot says it should be strong enough."

"Wait, Lobot should be able to patch you in. I know I've got the master slice for the city's comms, but can't he work around it?"

Bodhi sighs. "He says he's forgotten his backdoor codes."

Lando takes a long, deep breath before continuing. Lobot hasn't forgotten them. Lobot can't forget anything. Lobot is annoyed that he's avoiding his guests, and is trying to force him to talk to them. Because, despite all indications to the contrary and despite a cybernetically-enhanced intelligence that should tell him better, Lobot still thinks he's a genuinely decent person at heart.

"I'll be right down."

***

The Falcon sits in the middle of the empty hangar like a monument to an ancient mistake. Lando walks up to the ramp, hands in his pockets, pausing at the doorway.

Chewie's the first to see him, and he roars out a greeting. Lando's Shyriiwook isn't as good as it used to be, but he can tell that Chewie is prepared to tolerate his presence with a minimum of sarcastic asides and a total absence of choking. He counts that as a win.

"Hey, Chewie! I heard you needed a fix on the comms?" He holds up the city's master slice. "I don't mean to brag, but with this, you should be able to talk all the way to Nal Hutta."

"It's fine! The Falcon should be able to able to do it on her own!" Han yells, from inside.

Chewie wails in transcendent exasperation. Chewie loves Han like his own child, but he also has plenty of experience dealing with children.

As Lando walks down the ship's front hall, he can hear voices from the living room.

" - all I know is that he went to the Dagobah system, not with the rest of the fleet. But we should still be able to comm his x-wing, right?"

"Sweetheart, the Falcon should be able to comm anywhere."

Oh, gods, it even has the familiar Falcon stink, the smell of a Wookie crammed into slightly-too-small quarters with a man who lives off takout and has a questionable understanding of food disposal. Lando tries to breathe through his mouth, as much to ward off nostalgia as to protect his nose.

"I was asking Bodhi." 

Lando rounds the corner to see the living room of the Falcon, much more familiar than the back of his own hand, with the holoboard glowing blue over the table. Han is lounging against a back wall, Leia sitting on the couch curved around the board. Bodhi is next to Leia, tinkering with the holoboard in a way that looks like it's more about avoiding their conversation than getting anything done. 

"Well, I mean, from what I know, it should – Lando!" Bodhi waves at him, with a grin equal parts delight and relief.

"Hey," Lando says back, heart hovering at about the level of his shoes. He'd talked to Bodhi, even flirted with him a little, as though he were actually free. As though he could do that with a clear conscience.

"I've got the master slice." He waves it. "I heard that you needed to get in touch with a friend?"

Han grumbles, "I still say the Falcon should be able to make the connection on her own. Dagobah's pretty much in the same damn sector." 

Leia looks up at him from her perch on the couch, obviously touching as little of it as possible. Probably a smart move; Lando can still see the old stain from the time Han had thrown up his Coruscanti Five-Alarm. "Yes. Our friend Luke."

Lando just about drops the slice. "Luke? As in, Luke Skywalker? As in, Luke "Wanted Jedi" Skywalker?"

"As in Luke "I had to save his ass from a snowdrift a week ago" Skywalker," Han says, and Leia half-manages to supress a smile. 

Not for the first time this week, Lando thinks that his mother's gods must be real, because someone up there obviously hates him. 

"I'll do my best," he says. He slides the slice into the slot on the base of the holoboard, trying not to get too close to Bodhi's legs. For a fairly short man, Bodhi sure has a lot of leg, especially when Lando's trying to avoid them.

The access code goes through, and the connection beeps itself into being.

"Should be just fine. I'll leave you to it. Wouldn't want to intrude on a private conversation," he says, already backing towards the door.

"Oh, no," Bodhi says, with depressing sincerity. "You should meet Luke. I think he'd like you."

Han stares glumly at the screen. "Luke likes everyone," he says, to no one in particular.

So Lando stands to the side, uncomfortably, as Han and Chewie take turns adjusting the frequency.

"Where do you meet a Jedi, anyway?" Lando asks. "Do you just show up for your first day at the Rebellion and they assign you one?"

Han rolls his eyes, turning briefly away from the control panel for the holoboard. "I was his lift." Chewie wails assent. "It was supposed to be temporary."

The Senator shifts her weight on the couch. "An attempted rescue. Emphasis on the 'attempted'." 

Han looks over at her, offended. "It was a pretty good rescue, Princess! It got you rescued, didn't it?"

Leia gives him a withering look, and Han looks like he's going to respond. Chewie wails, in a clear attempt at interrupting the oncoming storm.

Lando looks over at Bodhi. "You _punched him?_ "

Bodhi puts up his hands in front of him defensively. "Yes, but I need to explain! You know that Luke can use the Force, right?"

"Yeah," Lando says. He could hardly forget it.

"Well, he's very ... friendly, and so sometimes he accidentally gets inside people's heads? Not in a bad way, he just likes to know about people, and he doesn’t always realize he's doing it. He did it the first time we met, and I ... well, I panicked."

"Don't be modest, flyboy," Leia grins. "You knocked him out cold. He was so excited when he woke up, too," she says, turning to Lando. Her genuine smile is lovely, and Lando realizes how guarded she's been. "Getting punched by one of the heroes of Rogue One? He wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks."

Bodhi covers his face with both hands. "Leia," he says, voice muffled. "Please."

Han grins, sitting up temporarily. "Oh, yeah, the kid was thrilled. Almost as good as the time your crazy old man told him that the Force was strong with him. He was bouncing off the walls."

"My crazy old ... " Bodhi stands up, hands on his hips. "Well, first of all, Chirrut has a name, and second of all, how many credits has he won off you, again?"

Han goes what is, despite Lando's private misery, a very amusing shade of red. "Listen, that doesn't prove anything. Just because he won a few card games doesn't mean anything about the Force, or whatever. He's, he's cheating. He has to be."

Bodhi looks at him, smugly. "Chewbacca told me you cheat, too."

Han turns to Chewie. "Some kind of friend you are, you crummy old area rug. Whose side are you on, anyways?"

Bodhi and Leia both laugh, and something about the sound hits an unbearable pitch inside of Lando.

"I don't think we're getting through to him," he says, more loudly than he means, and the others turn to look at him. "If we were going to get anywhere with the comm system, it would've gone through by now."

He needs to be away. He needs to be somewhere else, not inside a ship that used to be home with people he's screwing over. "If you want to keep trying, keep trying. I need to go fix shift schedules."

He walks out of the Falcon, feeling stupid and wrongfooted, and manages to get halfway down the gangway.

"Wait!" 

He turns around, reluctantly. Bodhi is standing in the door of the Falcon, outlined by the warm light coming from inside, one hand on the doorway. "After," Bodhi says, "After, I know you're busy now, but after, do you want to play a game of dejarik? I've promised to play against Chewbacca, and he's too good for me to play on my own."

He likes Bodhi. He likes Bodhi a lot. Even now, when he knows he shouldn't, he can feel himself going warm and pliant inside, wanting to make Bodhi smile.

"If it's the others you're worried about ... well, I know Leia, she doesn't dislike you nearly as much as she acts. Chewbacca actually does like you, I think, as much as he likes anyone who's not Han. And Han, well if Han doesn't like it, he can get bent." There's a muffled shout of indignation from inside the Falcon. "I'd say it to your face, too, Solo," Bodhi shouts back.

Lando takes a step backwards. "That's a losing game, even with two of us. Again, I'd rather not play games I know I can't win."

Bodhi pauses, face creased with concern. "Lando, did I do ... did I say something wrong? I mean, I'm sure I did, I usually do, but you can just tell me if ..."

Oh, and Lando had thought there weren't any more ways he could feel like shit today.

"No. It's fine," he says, forcing a mediocre smile. "I'm just ... I need to do things."

Maybe his sabacc reading had meant something after all. _The first card stands for the one who draws, the second card is what's standing in their way_. He knows the right choice, the responsible thing to do. Keep his head down, go through with the deal.

It's just the idiot idealistic part of himself standing in his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to change the number of chapters because I'm gay and I can't do math
> 
> (I feel like if Chirrut had been with the rebels into the ANH era, he would be the bane of Han's fucking life? As in, Chirrut has won an _embarrassing_ number of credits off Han, but Han refuses to stop playing against him because that would require admitting that either 1) the Force is real and has a real impact on people's lives or 2) Chirrut is a better card cheat than he is.
> 
> When people ask which one it is, Chirrut smugly says, "Yes.")


	6. Chapter 6

"I was thinking we could go see a play tomorrow," Lando says, over breakfast. He's not hungry, but he's trying to eat some of the eggs on his plate, for appearances' sake.

Han lays down his fork and knife. "We're going to see a what now?"

"A play, Han. Surely you've heard of those."

A play is a good idea. A play means you can host without having to look people in the eyes.

Chewie warbles a complaint, and Lando replies, "Yes, it's fancy dress, now stop whining. At least you don't have to wear a full set of formalwear."

Bodhi isn't at breakfast. According to Leia, his sleep schedule is all over the map, and he's as likely to sleep sixteen hours in a row as he is to not sleep at all.

"Oh, a play," Leia says, with interest. "I haven't been to one of those since ... since a long time." Her mouth twists. "I sat on my father's lap and squirmed the whole way through it. There was a battle between two ships at the end, and a swordfight. And a queen." Her face goes dreamy for a moment. "I liked the battle."

Lando looks across to Han, who looks as enraptured as he is miserable. Oh, he has it bad for her.

Lando's surprised he isn't more jealous. He'd be _thrilled_ that he wasn't more jealous if he didn't have a terrible suspicion about why that might be.

"I don't know if this one's going to have space battles," Lando says, after another forced mouthful. "I'm not even sure what it's called. All I know is that it's Rylothian."

Chewie wails.

"Well, you wouldn't know culture if it pulled a blaster on you, you furry philistine."

That's how to do it. Keep the conversation light, surface-level, like sabaac conversation. Nothing that could give you away.

***

Chewie, to his surprise, is the first one out of the guest quarters that evening. He's wearing the same bandolier belt as usual, but he's shaken silver sparkles all over it, and his surrounding fur. The effect is a little like Life-Day tinsel shedding on a shag carpet.

"Nice to see that you dressed up for the occasion," Lando says, grinning.

Chewie's howl, Lando had come to learn over the course of several years, can achieve the exact same tone as an eyeroll.

Han's next, wearing the same thing as usual, but with a little more silver braid around the edges. The joys of a varied wardrobe had never really been a pleasure Han enjoyed.

They wait. And wait. And wait.

"Can't believe I'm not the last one," Han says, loudly.

"I can't believe you aren't, either," Lando shoots back.

Chewie lets out something suspiciously like a laugh, and Han says, "Shut your furry face, you lousy traitor. You're on thin ice already."

The door to the guest rooms slide open, and Leia and Bodhi are there. Leia's wearing a simple red dress, with a white overcoat. She looks lovely, but Lando notices that she's picking at the hem of the sleeve already. For someone who had been trained as a politician, Leia sure gets restless when she's not in motion.

From right behind her, Bodhi grins, sheepishly. "I'm sorry, it took me a while to figure out how the wardrobe was supposed to work."

And, for a moment, Lando forgets how to respond. Bodhi's in black, as usual, but this black is soft and velvetty, shot through with gold. While Leia has her hair up in another style of elaborate braidwork, his is down, brushing his shoulders. It looks so soft that it's practically liquid, and some idiot traitor part of Lando wonders what it would be like to run his fingers through it. 

Aw, kriff, and his luck hasn't held, because Bodhi is wearing his godsdamn cape.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Lando says, in a voice that sounds far more strangled than he wants it to.

Han starts laughing, a low snicker deep in his throat that Lando does _not_ like the sound of.

“You look good,” Bodhi says mildly, without any particular charge or intent behind it, as though he were saying that Bespin was a gas giant or that tibanna powered spaceships. As though it were just a fact.

Why does the compliment make him flush like a teen? Because he's not used to compliments like that without any kind of come-on, without any lilt or tone that suggests what the person wants from him? Is a kriffing neutral tone from a handsome man enough to send him over the edge?

"Hey," Han says, as they leave the building. "Where'd you get that cape from, Bodhi? It looks awfully familiar."

***

The theater is high up one of the city's spires, and at least Lando can take pride in the view, which he can see Bodhi and Leia sneaking glimpses at as they walk past.

Han is beaming. He hasn't had time to torment Lando yet, but he keeps mentioning a "friendly game of sabaac" that he wants to play against him in the future, with a horrible, knowing grin on his face. Lando deals with it the way he always had with Han's teasing – pretends it doesn't exist.

The moment they get to the theatre, the group is besieged. Or, at least, Lando is besieged, by several theatregoers he hasn't seen in a while. There's Fasha'luroon, in a white velvet jumpsuit with matching ribbons criss-crossed down her lekku, and Dev Charro, wearing a set of ripped pants so current that Lando hasn't seen the style on anyone yet. They're clearly waiting for an introduction to his group.

"This is Leia," he says, not adding a last name. "Han and Chewie, I think you've met Chewie before. And, um, Joreth."

"Pleased to meet you," Bodhi says, leaning forward to take Fasha'luroon's hand.

Lando stays very quiet, letting Fasha and Dev chat it out with the white, moth-like woman who's joined their group, with an occasional comment from Leia or Chewie. He lets other people carry the conversation forward as they settle into their seats. Normally, he'd be in the thick of things, introducing and greeting. But now ...

This is the part of the play he always likes the best, the part that seems most shot-through with improbable magic. You pass from a world where you have responsibilities and duties and limits to somewhere dreamy, like listening to stories before bedtime. For just a moment, anything is possible.

The curtains jerk open, to a tableau of three people sitting in an escape pod. All the halogen lights are on the center of the stage, positioned by whirring droids high in the ceiling, all funnelling down into one ray of gold luminosity, into which any second, the actors will emerge. 

From the other end of their row, he hears a crunch, and realizes that Han has smuggled in hard candies.

Lando breathes out slowly and calmly, willing Han’s ridiculous behaviour not to affect him.

Oh, why had he thought a play was a good idea? With Han, who gets edgy around anything he considers fancy stuff because of whatever weird inferiority complex he has going on? With Chewie, who's always fallen asleep halfway through these things? Even Leia has a restless twitch, the look of someone who wasn’t a born sitter but had been schooled into it.

On the other hand, Bodhi's enraptured, mouth slightly open, two metal fingers resting on his lower lip. Lando tries not to look at him too closely.

The play is tricky to follow. It's about three people trapped in an escape pod, and the conversation they're having, but it's also about a lot of other things Lando can't focus on right now. From his skimmed view of the play, the people argue a lot, get on each other's nerves, and then one of them shoots the other two.

Lando can't really tell if he's happy or sad about that. He seems to be both. Rylothian theatre is like that.

The instant the light goes on, Bodhi rounds towards the others. “So, which of them do you think had it right?”

Dev shakes his head. "Who of who?"

Lando smirks. He likes the guy, but it's a little funny to watch him squirm. It's almost certain he wasn't paying any attention during the play, more focussed on checking which of his many politicking acquaintances were there.

"Well, Tiroc and Dejjik'lyn thought that hell was yourself, but Rax thought it was other people, right?"

Fasha interjects, obviously amused. "Rax is the one left standing at the end. Doesn't that mean he wins?"

Bodhi leans forward in his seat, focussed as a blaster beam. "See, I don't think so! Have you seen _Coruscant_? It's another one by him."

"I can't say I have."

"Oh, you should! See, he talks a lot about moral victory. It's this idea of his that you can win even if you lose, because -" he looks at Dev's pained expression, and Han's look of numb distrust, and laughs sheepishly.

"I'm sorry. That's what you get for having an academic for a mother, you can't stop taking stories apart to see how they work." He nods at Fasha. "We can talk about this later, when I'm not boring everyone else in attendance."

Outside the theatre, the social part of the evening is just going into full swing. Lando drifts in with some of his foremen. They're talking about a bubble rupture that happened down one of the mines earlier in the day, but Lando can't really hear them. His eyes keep drifting around the polished white antechamber, finding one guest and then the other.

Han? Over by the refreshments, trying to shrink himself into the wall. As usual. Bodhi? Still talking to Fasha and the pale woman from earlier. Leia and Chewie? Discussing something, probably guns, with a man in a nice suit who Lando doesn't recognize.

Han? Awkwardly trying to join Chewie and Leia's conversation. Chewie? Looking exasperated. Leia? Excited. Bodhi? Fists clenched, standing as straight as a holonet receiver.

Lando excuses himself from the conversation. 

" - not an accident," Bodhi is saying, when he gets close enough to hear them. "What happened on Lasan was genocide."

"Whoa, whoa, what's the argument about?" Lando asks.

Fasha's easy smile doesn't even twitch. "It was extreme, I'll give you that. But the Empire was defending itself against extreme violence."

Bodhi's mouth is drawn tight, a grim slash across his face. "Extreme? A local rebellion, with handheld weapons, again AT-ATs? Against Star Destroyers? Against the _T-7s_?"

"Mr. Sward," Fasha says. "With all due respect, I think you're being a little dramatic."

"I could tell you exactly what the T-7s did to people, down to the chemical level. Have you seen the footage? Because, I can tell you, if you've seen someone dissolve -"

"Bodhi," Lando says, "we need to go." Before he gets stabbed, or gets picked up for his bounty, or gets stabbed while someone is trying to pick him up for his bounty. 

Besides, Lando _has_ seen the footage from Lasan, and he doesn't want to revisit it outside of his nightmares.

Bodhi doesn't even acknowledge him. "When you use weapons like that against civilians? Against _prisoners_? That's evil."

Fasha crosses her arms, gold bangles rattling against each other. "You're far too intelligent to be taking your information from darknet conspiracy threads, Mr. Sward. There's no credible evidence to suggest that they actually used the T-7s on civilians." Bodhi opens his mouth to respond, but she barrels on. "And, as for prisoners, well, I mean ..."

"As for prisoners, what?" 

"Well," Fasha smoothes the front of her jumpsuit uncomfortably, crushing the velvet down the wrong way. "You know."

"No, I don't," Bodhi says, his voice so soft that Lando has to strain to hear him. "Can you spell it out for me?"

The air is going bar-fight bad. "Fasha," Lando says, warningly, hoping she'll listen.

She doesn't pay him any attention. "I mean, well. It's not as though they were really _innocent._ Do you have any idea what anti-Imperial forces are capable of?"

Bodhi goes the kind of still you see at the centre of an ion storm. 

"I do, thank you very much," he says, still soft as before. "Would you like to hear about it? Do you want to know what it's like to be hurt when you're absolutely helpless? When you can't escape?"

"I didn't..." she says, and then snaps her mouth shut. The scarlet of her face fades to purple across her cheeks. Lando has never seen her go that colour before.

"Would that convince you that the T-7s were wrong, no matter who they were used on? Would that ..."

He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a long breath, and then opens them again. "I think I should leave now," he says, slowly, and turns to walk away.

Fasha has regained her usual composure. "Lando, I don't want to be rude, but what is _wrong_ with that man?"

Lando's actually wondering the same thing, in a far different register. "As much as I'd like to stay and chat, I have a responsibility to look after my guest. Who you clearly upset."

She opens her mouth indignantly. "Well, pardon me, but I wasn't the one ..."

He walks away. He can apologize later, if he needs to. If it's even worth apologizing to someone who defended the Lasan campaign, of all things.

Right now, Bodhi's priority number one.

***

The door to the flight simulator is open a crack, and Lando knocks at it. No one responds, but Lando can tell that there's someone in it because of the vast starfields shooting across the screen. 

He slides the door open a touch more.

Bodhi is in the pilot's seat. The hypothetical craft zigzags wildly between planets and meteors, as though he's testing how close he can get to them without crashing. It makes Lando airsick just watching it.

"Bodhi?" he asks, and Bodhi spins around in the chair, exiting the flight simulator like a kid caught torrenting dodgy files off the holonet. The crowded spacefield fades to black, automated finishing tone playing itself out in the silence.

"Did Leia send you?" he asks, right leg fluttering like a mynock trapped in an engine compartment.

Lando stands awkwardly in the doorway. It occurs to him that he probably should have let the others know he was leaving. Not a very good-host thing to do, leaving them at a party without him. 

"She didn't. I sent me."

"I'm fine," Bodhi says, making an obvious effort to hold himself up straight and ground his knee with a flattened palm. "I'm fine. I just need a moment." He gestures at the screen.

Lando tries another tack. "Look, if you want to fly something, blow off some steam, we've literally got hangers filled with ships you could borrow. I mean, they're mining ships, but -"

Bodhi's cybernetic hand tightens on the armrest. "Leia really didn't tell you."

"No. Tell me what?"

Bodhi laughs in a way that's not even a little funny. "I can't fly anymore."

Lando blinks. "Wait, what?"

"I'm not cleared for it." Bodhi's smile is awful, empty. "It's ... confined spaces and I are not friends. You know, if you panic every time you try to enter a cockpit, they stop letting you try?"

Lando sucks a breath in between his teeth. "I'm sorry," he says, automatically.

Bodhi shakes his head, almost a twitch, like he’s trying to shake something out of it. “You don’t need to ... look, I’m fine, I’m good, I’m fine."

“Don’t mean to be rude here, but you don’t seem very fine.”

“I’ll be fine in ... Look, I know how this goes. I know how to get ... I’ll be fine. Just give me ten minutes.”

Lando looks around. The room’s small, dark. “I don’t know if this is the best place for you to be right now. I can take you -"

Bodhi jerks back as though he's been slapped. 

"I am not a child," he says, every word as precise as a blaster bolt, leg finally still. "I've been shot at, tortured, shot at again, I've - I've been to the worst Imperial prisons, I've been to the fucking labour camps of Kashyyyk, and they're worse than you can even imagine, so don't ..." He can't seem to finish the rest of his sentence. "Tell Leia not to come looking for me."

Lando can't think of a single good word to say. So he backs out of the room, like a coward, like he can't do anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(
> 
>    
> (one of my favourite things about Lando is how protective he is of anyone he considers His People. one of my favourite things about Bodhi is his stubborn, touchy pride. I realized partway through writing this story that those two traits would ... not always mesh well)


	7. Chapter 7

Bodhi isn't at breakfast, and Lando forces down his food as fast as he can, not wanting to meet anyone's eyes. Everyone else seems similarly unhappy. For a moment, he's reminded of the escape pod from the play.

It's when Bodhi doesn't show up at lunch either that Lando gets concerned.

***

Lando leans up against the hood of the Millennium Falcon. "It's good to see you, Han," he says.

He doesn't even look up from the bolt he's tightening. "What's the favour."

"What, not even a hello first?"

"What's the favour."

"I'm wounded, Han. Three years together, and you can't trust me to pay you a simple compliment?"

Han looks up at Lando with galaxy-weary eyes. "What's the favour, Lando."

Lando huffs. He's been trying to avoid this, avoid talking to Han on his own, because he'd _known_ Han would be like this.

"Fine, if you need it to be that way. I'm pretty certain I can find where Bodhi is; Lobot's wired into the system. But..."

Han stands up, crossing his arms. "But what?"

"But I need you to talk to him. Not me."

He doesn't know what to say. Maybe Han will.

Han rolls his eyes, turning his attention back to the ship. "You want to fuck him?"

"Do I what now?" Oh good, Han's acting like a child now, trying to shock him by being rude.

"You're only this evasive with people you want to fuck," Han says, and Lando's sure he isn't imagining the bitterness in his voice. "Or are already fucking."

 _Why the kriffing petulance_ , Lando wants to ask. Han doesn't have any claim on him anymore. And, from the way he looks at Leia, it's unlikely he has any claim on Bodhi either. "I'm trying to ensure the safety of a guest who one of my acquaintances offended," he says, trying to keep a level tone because nothing annoys Han more. "I'm trying to be mature here, Han."

_One point for the m-word, Calrissian. ___

____

____

Han laughs, driving a bolt home far too tightly for it to sit right. "We both know you're not. If you were, you'd talk to him straight up instead of going through me like some kind of smuggler's middle man. Do your own dirty work, Calrissian."

Lando almost shoots back something quick and nasty, an argument-ender. But, damn it, Han's actually right, no matter how petulant he's being about it.

He makes himself breathe out, slowly, before he says anything.

"Okay. I will."

The hand holding the wrench slips down to Han's side. For the first time in the conversation, Lando has his full attention.

"You will?"

Oh, and Lando can read that incredulity easier than any sabaac hand, because half of it's real and half of it's him trying to hurt Lando and half of it's him trying to understand what he's even feeling in the first place. Han always feels things so loudly, so in the open.

Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe it had only been half the problem.

"No, you're right. I owe it to him."

Han shakes his head, slowly. "You're telling me I'm right? Well, will wonders never cease."

"Don't get used to it," Lando says, trying not to smile. "I'll be back to my old self by tomorrow."

Han laughs, then, and it's only half-sad. "When you talk to him, just … just be yourself, Calrissian, okay? It's not as much of a turnoff as it should be."

***

Bodhi's up on the roof again, with Lando's cape wrapped around him like a blanket.

Lando levers himself out through the window, clutching onto the frame. Tentatively, he lets go of the building, and walks down the roof's mild slope, towards the edge. He doesn't even need to worry about walking loud enough that Bodhi can hear him coming; every footfall on the ridged durasteel sounds like cymbals.

He walks until he's level with Bodhi, then sits down a few feet away. At least sitting down, the wind doesn't tug at him so much. He makes sure not to look down.

They sit there, in silence, for what feels like years but is probably more like minutes. Finally, Bodhi looks over at him, loose hair fluttering around his face.

"What is it?" he asks, tiredly.

He's still wearing his theatre clothes. Lando would bet good credits that he hadn't been back to his room during the night.

Lando takes a deep breath. This is stupid, and risky, and he doesn't have a script for it.

"I used to walk my mother home from the market, on bad days." He fiddles with his comm, slides it back in his pocket, looks out at the city. It's easier to talk when he doesn't have to meet Bodhi's eyes. "They'd changed the names of the streets, when the Empire came in. On her good days, she'd remember that."

Bodhi shakes his head, looking puzzled rather than tired for a moment. "Where are you going with this?"

"She'd fought in half the big battles of the Clone Wars. She could strip down and reassemble a blaster in less than a minute. She was braver than anyone I knew. And I had to walk her home sometimes, because she'd freeze up. Because the street names were different."

Tish Calrissian had been a master of tactics, but a big heart is a tactical weakness in an unkind world. Hers had been big enough to hold all of Vakeyya City, all of Socorro.

When he looks up, Bodhi's face has softened slightly, but he still doesn't say anything. His head is tilted to the side, expecting more.

 _A long time ago, on a planet far, far away_ (Kemno Calrissian would start his stories, no matter whether they happened at the market the day before or only in the realm of his imagination) _a young adventurer met a beautiful princess with a trigger hand steadier than the orbit of stars._ He'd told that story at least a thousand times, and every time, Tish Calrissian would laugh. Even on days when it seemed like she didn't have any laughter left in her body.

Not all of it's sad, Lando remembers. There were good days, good things, even after the war had ended.

"She tried to make it better, too. The city, I mean. She'd leave out food for the desert dogs when they came into the city, just because the troopers hated them. Nothing cheered her up more than a trooper stepping in a nice warm pile of dog shit."

Bodhi laughs softly at that, shoulders dipping forward. When he sputters to a close, there's no noise but the sound of the wind. They sit there in silence for a moment, looking out over the city. It's not late afternoon yet, but the sun's going golden in a way that suggests it.

"Sorry for coming out here, again. It's just nice, seeing the city from above." Bodhi taps a thumb against the roof. "It feels like, like nothing bad can happen to you when you're up this high."

He doesn't look at Lando as he says it, obviously bracing for him to laugh.

"You must really miss flying, then," Lando says, instead.

Bodhi shuts his eyes and breathes out, long and slow.

"It was the only thing I was every really good at, good for." He swings a leg against the side of the building, voice too casual to be casual. "And then I couldn't even do that."

Lando wants to jump in, correct him. But he knows that's not the right thing to do. It wouldn't be pity, but it would have the same smell as pity, at least to Bodhi.

"It's better, now, easier," Bodhi says after a pause, with a wan smile. "I know there's other things I can do. I know that I'm still a pilot, in here," he taps his chest with the knuckles of one gloved hand. "On good days, at least."

He pauses again, and Lando isn't sure if he's stopped talking. "Sorry, I didn't really answer your question. I lose conversations, sometimes. " He taps a finger to his temple, smiling crookedly. "Yes, I miss flying."

"If you wanted," Lando says, after another long, silent moment, "if you wanted, we could go up in my airspeeder. It's a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of paradise, no buildings in the way, no cockpit to hem you in."

Bodhi's face closes up again, faster than a set of blast doors. "You don't have to feel sorry for me."

Gods _damn_ , the man has more stubborn pride in him than anyone else Lando's ever met!

There's a knock from behind him, and Lando spins. Jax Pavan is silhouetted against the open window, looking out at them mournfully.

"Sir," she calls out, over the wind. "Baron Calrissian. I had a question about one of your gu… oh, hello, sir." She blinks a few times, as though she's trying to clear her vision.

Lando crabwalks backward towards the window, gladly trading dignity for safety. Jax has definitely seen him looking stupider. "What's up, Ms. Pavan?"

Her gaze is still fixed on Bodhi. "I," she says, "I."

"Take your time."

"I have a question for you," she says, quietly enough that Bodhi won't be able to hear it over the wind.

"Okay," Lando says, puzzled. "Shoot."

"Him," she says, darting her eyes towards Bodhi. "He's the pilot, right? The one on the Imperial transmissions. The one who helped bring down the Death Star."

Lando sucks in a breath. Jax isn't stupid, and so this shouldn't surprise him. But the truth is, she's barely volunteered any personal information in the last year. He didn't even know she had political interests.

"I can explain," he says, and is shocked to see her face split in a savage grin. The effect is unsettling, like being charged by a herd of usually-docile werwick.

"Good," she whispers, so quietly he can barely hear her say it. "Good."

"Ms. Pavan?"

Her usual mild look melts back over her face, and she steps up onto the roof ledge.

"Jax!"

Instead of curtseying like she usually does when faced with guests, she snaps off a near-perfect military salute.

"I'm very honoured to meet you, sir, Mr. Rook." she says, and Lando's shocked to hear her voice tremble with emotion.

"Jax Pavan, right?" he asks, and she beams. "Lando's said amazing things about you. I'm honoured to meet you, too." The afternoon light throws blue shadows across his face, long and weary, and suddenly, Lando's heart is too full.

"We, we used to talk about you, at the palace, my friend and I. We were never sure if you were real."

Lando wonders how many quiet, unassuming people whisper about Bodhi Rook when their bosses and masters aren't listening – _didju hear about the cargo pilot who helped take down the Death Star, yeah, just an ordinary cargo pilot_ – and he'd bet his last five credits that the Empire wonders about that too.

"I'm fairly certain that I'm real. Most of the time," Bodhi says, very solemnly. It surprises a quiet laugh out of Jax.

How many people who work for the Empire are doing it with a hole through their heart? How many people defect with Bodhi's name in their mouth? From what Lando knows about the attack on the Death Star, Bodhi had been the messenger. He's more than that, now. He's the message.

Which means the Empire is never, ever going to let him go, not if they have him in their grasp.

"Ms. Pavan, I am going to politely request that you step inside."

She's still smiling as she turns to face him. "Sorry, sir," she says, not sounding very sorry at all. "Am I fired?"

"Of course you're not fired, Ms. Pavan," Lando sighs. "Just don't want all three of us falling off this godsforsaken roof the second the city hits a bump, is all."

She steps backwards through the windowframe. "I'll see you at dinner. Sir."

When she leaves, Lando looks back at Bodhi. He still looks exhausted, but there's a tired, lovely light in his eyes.

No one could accuse Bodhi of being traditionally charismatic. But there's something about him, something bright and true, that makes you want to believe in him. He’s beautiful, in the way people were in Kemno Calrissian’s stories, beautiful in a way that real things have no right to be.

Bodhi looks at him, and Lando realizes he's been staring. "Do I have something on my face?"

Bodhi can't be in the city when Vader comes. It's as simple, and as complicated, as that. Lando can't openly defy Vader, that would be suicide for him and his city. But he can't be the reason the Empire puts out Bodhi's light, either.

"It's … listen, Bodhi. I would really, really like it if you came flying with me. I like your company, a lot. You're sharp as all hells, and funny, and brave, and someone really worth knowing." The sincerity of it chokes him on the way out, _oh gods, why doesn't he have a better way of saying it?_ "It would be a favour to me."

Bodhi smiles, slowly. "Well, when you put it like that," he says, "I guess I have to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I can't even imagine how terrifying Bodhi Rook would be for high-up Imperials. 
> 
> ft. the Han Solo / Lando Calrissian Divorce Court Shitshow, me wildly inventing more Lando Backstory because Lucasfilm won't give it to me (cowards) and me, again, writing Female OCs I Would Die For.


	8. Chapter 8

Even at medium speed, the spires and domes of Cloud City are a bright smear, architectural gems blurring together. And the wind is bitter against the exposed skin around Lando's eyes.

He looks over to his right. Bodhi's squinting into the wind, flight goggles still hanging around his neck and ponytail streaming out behind him like a banner. He's looking a lot better, now, after dinner and a trip to the fresher.

"Do you want us to slow down?" Lando shouts over the wind, as a casino floats under them.

Bodhi shakes his head. "Are you kidding me?" he yells. He jerks a thumb to the sky twice, the galaxy-wide gesture for _go faster._

"I'm over the speed limit already! You wanna get us arrested?"

"Can't get arrested if they can't catch you!" Bodhi yells. 

Lando speeds up, and the towers blur and whip across the sky. "I hope you're satisfied, you speed demon!"

In response, Bodhi laughs so hard that he almost chokes. It occurs to Lando that he's never seen him quite this happy.

He'd skipped dinner to go talk to Lobot. He'd told him about the deal, Vader, all of it. It had sucked exactly as much as he'd been expecting, but they'd hashed out a plan to evac Bodhi whenever Vader tells them he's coming, with enough plausible deniability to say that he'd been kidnapped for his bounty. And the other three are still covered by his original deal. Which means they're all safe.

His heart feels lighter than it has in a long time.

When they reach the city limits, the place where the airspeeder would risk falling off the map, Lando slows them to a crawl. "Can I show you something?"

Even with his scarf shifted up over his mouth, it's obvious that Bodhi's smiling. "Yes."

So Lando steers them up in a lazy spiral, up and up until they're at least a hundred feet above the buildings. Then, he turns down the engine, letting it sit on idle, and takes off his goggles.

"We can't talk much, up here," he says, just loud enough to be heard over the soft hum of the engine. "Technically, we're not in city airspace, this high, and if an Imperial ship picks up on us …"

Bodhi grins, putting a finger to his lips and giving Lando a big, exaggerated nod. Then, he looks over at the sunset, and puts a hand to his mouth for real.

 _Wow_ , he mouths, and Lando laughs, quietly.

"I did promise you a view," he whispers. And it's a good view, today, more cloud cover over the planet than he’d want, but they’re all pink where the sun hits them and blue where it doesn’t.

He passes Bodhi the thermos. "Tea. It's Socorran," he says, and it feels like an admission. "Sardinam, but most of the time, we'd brew it cold. Nobody wanted to drink hot tea in the high summer."

Bodhi sips at it, eyes sweeping the sunset below. "It's hot," he stage-whispers, sounding surprised. "I mean, I know it's hot, but it's also _hot_ hot." He takes another gulp.

"Yeah, that way you'd sweat out all the alcohol my mother put in it before it poisoned you. That's the Socorran way, poison yourself before anyone else can do the job."

Bodhi snorts, and takes another slow swallow, eyes fluttering shut in the steam. He looks almost otherworldly for a moment, steam haloing his face with gold.

He passes the thermos back and says, "Thank you," with such sincerity that it makes Lando's face go hot.

"Don't – I mean, it's really nothing," and Han would laugh himself sick if he were up here right now, smoothtalking Lando Calrissian unable to take a simple compliment. "I'm sure if you talked to any real tea connoisseur, they'd have a hundred ways I'm doing it wrong. No alcohol, for one."

"Not just for the tea," Bodhi says, and then looks shyly down at his lap.

Lando slops tea over his fingers, scalding them, and tries to shake himself back to the real world, whatever that means when he's sitting high above the clouds with a handsome man who shines like a beacon.

Finally, the sun sinks below the clouds, turning them a bruised purple. Bodhi pulls his jacket tight around his shoulders, not shivering, but clearly not warm, either. Not without sadness, Lando sends the speeder spiraling back down to the ground, following the path it had taken up in reverse, anticlockwise.

Lando gets out of the craft before Bodhi does, to grab his door. Bodhi stumbles a little on the translation between sky and ground, and Lando catches at his arm.

"Damn my pilot's legs," Bodhi says, laughing slightly.

Bodhi's arm is surprisingly warm, as if he radiated heat like he radiates light. Lando's heard that when you lose heat on cold days, it's because your body is trying to warm the whole universe on its own.

Lando doesn't let go. Bodhi doesn't pull away.

His eyes are dark and serious, even with the laugh lines still fading from around them. He studies Lando's face like a sabaac hand, and for once, Lando hopes he's an open one.

Bodhi brings his free hand up to Lando's jawline, metal fingers warm and gentle, and guides Lando forward into a kiss.

It's a dry kiss, Bodhi's chapped lips barely grazing Lando's. It's the kind of kiss that could go either way, go in closer or pull away. So he puts his hands lightly on Bodhi's hips, fluttering half on him and half over him.

And clearly that's all the invitation Bodhi needs, because he crushes himself into Lando's chest, deepening the kiss. Lando briefly forgets what he's supposed to be doing with his hands, before putting them on Bodhi's back, lightly pulling him in. The jacket is pleasantly rough under his hands.

Bodhi kisses intensely, just this side of sloppy, but it's good, it's _so_ good. He slides a hand up Bodhi's back and into his hair, tangling his fingers in it. It's just as soft as he'd imagined, and he can't resist giving a gentle, experimental tug. Bodhi makes a pleased little noise against his mouth, and the sound goes all the way down Lando's spine. With the part of his brain that's still able to string words together, he's relieved that he hasn't gotten rusty. He can't remember the last person he'd kissed that he wanted to kiss this badly.

Oh gods, it couldn't be Han, could it? That's just too embarrassing to think about.

Slowly, lingeringly, Bodhi pulls away, dipping back in for one more soft kiss first. Because Lando is a grown man who has been kissed before, he doesn't whine at the loss of Bodhi's warmth against him. But it's a close thing.

He feels like he should say something, but Bodhi’s lips are dark and full, and his hair is falling out of its neat ponytail, and Lando finds he can’t say anything at all.

"Thank you for the ride," Bodhi says, and he's almost shy now, looking away. "And the tea. It really was nice."

And he leaves, with one last little glance at Lando.

Lando looks after him, rooted to the spot. He brushes one hesitant hand against his lips, testing whether he can feel them, whether this is all real.

Well, how in all hells is he supposed to sleep now?

***

Lando wakes up, mouth dry, trying to remember why he's so happy. He's in his office, the sunlight spilling down the walls (aw kriff, he's late). His arms are sore from the flight and oh, yes, that was what he's so happy about, that he had kissed Bodhi Rook last night, or Bodhi had kissed him, and for a moment, he's so happy he can barely breathe.

Of course, this means about a million other problems. But he'll make that trade run when he comes to it.

It was funny that his alarm hadn't woken him, though. Even though he hadn't gotten to sleep very easily, he rarely slept through it. Hopefully, his guests are still eating, and he'll be able to greet them down at the table. He pulls a white tunic shirt on over his pants, then changes it for a blue one. No matter how excited he is, he at least wants to look presentable.

But the moment he steps outside his office, he knows something's wrong. 

He can't quite hear what's going on downstairs, but there are raised voices, and a red light flashing on the wall of the corridor. Someone clearly cut the interior power to his office, which at least explains the switched-off alarm.

And, one floor down, there's a stormtrooper guarding the staircase.

"Identifications, please," the troopers says, holding out a gloved hand.

"Under whose damn orders?" Lando asks, trying not to let his voice shake. No troopers in his city. No troopers in his godsdamn city, he'd made the deal!

"This is my city, and if anyone is going to be asking for identifications, it's going to be me!"

"Lord Vader's, sir," the trooper responds, sounding almost bored.

Lando's stomach lurches. Without stopping to produce his papers, he sprints down the stairs towards the guest quarters.

"Hey! You didn't show me your papers!"

But the trooper doesn't shoot, to stun or kill, and Lando just keeps running.

He runs down the third-floor hall, skidding as he tries to stop outside of the guest quarters.

The breakfast table is a frozen tableau, Han and Leia next to each other with their food untouched, Chewie with a trooper behind his back, paws on the back of his head, and Bodhi sitting very still, eyes trained on the fifth person at the table.

"Baron Calrissian," Darth Vader says, holding a mug of caf in some dark parody of real life. "Would you like some breakfast?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~... and yes, the mug absolutely says "Galaxy's Best Dad."~~
> 
> Also, I am very very seriously grateful for (and mildly bewildered by) the lovely comments that people have been leaving! Y'all are Too Much, but I'm very happy that you like my wildly self-indulgent fic where I yell about imperialism and resistance and moral dilemmas and (now) kissing! Thank you <3


	9. Chapter 9

The worst thing is seeing the Stormtroopers march through the city, crowds going stunned and quiet, children hiding behind their parents. And then the worst thing is the way Bodhi gently touches Leia's arm when her face goes pale, and Lando remembers that she's been in Imperial custody before. And then the worst thing is seeing Han lowered into the carbonite, when Lando can't look at Leia when she says he loves him, and he forces himself to think _the city or a man, the city or a man, the city or a man_ , only the thought feels numb in his head, unreal, and Han looks so vulnerable. Only he still loves him, even if it's a different kind of love, and he doesn't even have Leia's chance to tell him that. 

And then the worst thing is when Vader pauses, outside of the baronial palace and says, "Calrissian, take the princess and the Wookie to my ship. I need to speak to the defector myself." 

Lando hears a hiss of indrawn breath. He isn't sure who it comes from, himself or Bodhi or one of the others. He'd done everything Vader had asked! 

"You said they'd be left in the city! You said they'd be left under my supervision!" 

Vader whirls to face him. "I am altering the deal," he says, in his terrible voice. "And you broke our agreement yourself when you neglected to inform me about Rook's presence. Perhaps I will leave the garrison here after all."

Troopers down every alleyway, just like Vakeyya City, just like Socorro. 

"Or perhaps I will be able to make a better deal with Rook myself." 

At this, Lando twitches his head towards Bodhi. He can't stop himself. Bodhi's face is utterly blank, an awful kind of calm. 

The problem with Bodhi Rook, the worst thing about him, was that you actually started to believe him. You actually started to believe that truth and justice had a weight to them, like an AT-AT or the butt of a trooper's rifle. 

"I have heard much about you, Rook." 

Bodhi says nothing, but the muscle in his jaw jumps. Lando knows what having Vader's full attention on you feels like, the heavy darkness rising in your mind. 

He wants to stand between them, shield him somehow, but what good could he do?

Maybe that's what had broken his mother's heart, not the battles or the disappearances or the bodies left lying in the street. The fact that there wasn't a single fucking thing you could keep safe.

"My generals inform me that you are an even more valuable asset than Skywalker. You will, perhaps, be pleased to know that they have an offer for you." 

Bodhi stays silent, still looking up at Vader. The only sign of struggle is the hard set of his jaw, the occasional faint shiver.

"You have caused much trouble for them," and the corner of Bodhi's mouth twitches up in a small smile, "but they believe you can repair some of the damage. If you agree to work with the Empire, to salvage some of the people you convinced otherwise, my generals have agreed to give you anything you want." 

"Anything I want," says Bodhi, in a still, small voice, the only sound in the whole city. 

"My generals will provide it." 

"Then I agree." 

Lando blinks.

Vader continues. "Calrissian, you can escort the Wookie and the -" 

"I wasn’t finished.” Bodhi is actually trembling right now, his entire body is shaking, but his fists are clenched. “Anything I want? Ask - ask your generals if they can bring back Jedha City. Ask them if they can bring back Alderaan." 

The silence afterward rings in Lando's ears.

Vader takes a few deep, slow breaths before responding. "Most amusing, Rook. I was told you were clever." 

Bodhi tilts his head to the side. "Well, can they?" 

At that, Leia actually _smiles_ , looking, for the briefest moment, free.

Vader raises a hand in warning and Lando swears he can feel the temperature drop.

"I won't do anything for the Empire," Bodhi says, shivering but not breaking eye contact. "Not again. Tell your generals that, please."

Bodhi's defiance won't save him. It won't stop Vader from hurting him, hurting his friends, killing him, even. 

All it can do is prove that there's something the Imperials can't take. 

"Bring him separately." Vader snaps his fingers at one of his troopers, and they walk forward. "I will deal with him after I deal with Skywalker." 

Bodhi bites down hard on his lip as the trooper tightens the restraints around his wrists. 

Vader turns back toward him. "You are making a most unwise decision." 

"Oh, I know," Bodhi says, soft and sure enough to crack Lando's heart down the centre. 

He doesn't move until the trooper prods him, and he stumbles on his way through the doorway.

Lando watches them until they go out of sight, heart pounding in his head.

In a better world, the kind of world Kemno Calrissian told stories about, someone brave and good would swoop in to save the day. Unfortunately, there's just Lando Calrissian, tired old smuggler without a ship, without a hope, and now without a city. 

You can't save the galaxy after all, and maybe you can't even save a city. Maybe all you can do is save a few good people. 

He looks down at his wrist comm. _Lobot_ , he types, _get ready to evacuate the city. I'm about to do something stupid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to apologize for *gesturing around* All Of This Dramatic Bullshit.
> 
> ... listen, there's just something about people facing opponents they know they can't win against, and choosing to be brave anyways, that just carves out a place under my ribcage (which is why I'm never going to be over Finn picking up a lightsaber to fight Kylo Ren, but that's another story). And Bodhi and Lando are both (canonically) very very brave, and I love them.
> 
> Also, there's a time-skip of a few days before the very last chapter!


	10. Chapter 10

The thing that surprises Lando the most about the Rebellion is how little of it is military. He should have expected it; even the most single-purpose institutions have other things grow up around them, because people can't live in a vacuum. The Rebellion may be built on hope, but it's also built on cooks and architects and mechanics.

Still, it's strange to walk past a war briefing and see children playing sniper tag.

Lando weaves around an astromech shouting out some very rude words in binary, and past a group of pilots discussing who has the highest current hit-count.

Jekaria Fesh had asked him to find her wife. They'd been separated in Cloud City's evacuation, and she hadn't seen Duqua since. There's no reason to think Lando will have any more success finding her than Jekaria, it's just … well, he's Lando Calrissian, isn't he, and he's supposed to be able to work miracles.

So he steps through the door to the medcenter, trying not to wince at the smell of bacta.

"Long time no see," he says to the droid behind the counter.

LN-343 sighs. "You're looking for someone else?"

He's been doing this kind of thing a lot in the past few days. People are asking him to do it and … well, it's work. It's something to keep him mind moving.

"Name of Duqua Fesh? She's a zabrak, about six feet tall, with a nice smile and biceps bigger than my head?"

"A tall zabrak," the droid says, dryly. "That certainly narrows it down."

"Don't worry, old friend. I've got more details. She's gold, with brown face tattoos. She's got a broken horn."

LN-343 looks at him, expression blank as only a droid's can be. "We have three zabrak in our care matching that approximate physical description. You are going to have to be more specific."

"She'll probably be the one who tried to break out and go look for her wife."

The droid groans. "Room two hundred and seventeen. And I hope you're going to take her off my hands. Yesterday, she nearly climbed out the window. While sedated. Have you ever tried to restrain a sedated zabrak?"

"Can't say I have," Lando says, smiling to himself. He types a comm message to Jekaria, making sure to warn her about the mood the chief meddroid is in. That's one less worried refugee on his hands.

When he looks up, he sees Bodhi talking to another meddroid.

He looks ... well, not great. He's pale, even against the crisp white of the hospital gown, and there are bacta patches on his wrist and over part of his lower lip. But he's lightyears ahead of when Lando had last seen him.

Lando watches him for a moment, frozen in place.

"Another one of your people?" LN-343 asks, from behind him.

"Yeah. Uh, wait, no. I'm not sure."

He takes a few tentative steps, not quite covering the distance between them. LN-343 is still talking, but Lando doesn't hear it.

He doesn't know how close he should get, how close he has a right to get. He doesn't even know if Bodhi will want to talk to him.

"Bodhi," he says, quietly, because he has to know.

Bodhi turns towards him and, for some reason, smiles.

"Lando! I'm glad to see you're okay."

Lando laughs, thinly. "Same to you." This close, he can see the deep cut on his lip, mostly covered by the bacta patch. At least it's not raw and red any more.

They stand there, silent, a million useless words buzzing around in Lando's head.

"Have you seen Luke?" he manages, finally. Luke and Bodhi had been taken to the medcenter the second they'd stepped off the Falcon, Luke for his arm and Bodhi for, well, other things.

"Yes. He's," Bodhi winces, "about as well as you could expect. The surgery went fine, but the meddroids found out that he reacts very strongly to the sedatives. When I went to see him, he pointed at my cybernetic, said, "Hey! We're twins now!", tried to high-five me with his new arm, missed, and almost started crying. Kay videoed it, but Cassian made him delete it afterwards."

Lando blinks. There had definitely been some words there, but he hadn't really understood any of them.

"How's your lip?" he asks, instead of trying to respond.

"Better than it looks." Bodhi brings two fingers up to it, winces, and puts his hand back down. "Ell-En even said it wasn't bad!"

"No, I didn't," the chief meddroid says, in a tone of clear disapproval. "I said that it was less egregious than the usual injuries you -"

"Anyways!" Bodhi cuts him off. "It's good to see you, Lando."

Lando blinks. "It is?"

Bodhi rolls his eyes. "No, why would it be? You only saved all of us, and Luke, and made sure -"

"Did you maybe," Lando says, very slowly, "miss any of what happened before that life-saving bit?"

Leia, her face a study in grief and anger. Luke, hand over the place where his arm used to be, numb with shock. Han gone, Chewie lost inside himself. Bodhi, lip bloody, eyes blank. His fault.

Bodhi looks at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, head tilted to the side. "Listen, let's take a walk," he says, finally.

From behind the desk, LN-343 sighs. "Mr. Rook, if you attempt to leave the hospital before you're fully healed again -"

"Don't worry," Bodhi says, cheerfully, over Lando's shoulder. "We'll be back in ten!"

***

The air outside the medcenter is warm, warmer than Lando's used to. He can't remember the name of the planet they're on; it didn't even have a real name, just a letter and number designation.

It's noisy out there too, rebels and refugees alike still in the midst of putting up buildings. The game of sniper tag seems to have gotten bigger, children ducking under ladders and darting between concerned adults. They have to stop for a moment before the game can move out of the middle of the path.

"When Mon Mothma came to visit me in the medcenter," Bodhi says, as soon as they clear the crush of children, "she told me a story."

"Mon Mothma," Lando repeats, trying to put a face to the name. Normally, he's good with names, but it's been a long day and an even longer week, and he can't remember the last time he slept properly, and ...

"She said that when your refugees showed up at the Rebellion base, half of them wanted to talk to her right away. Not to secure housing, or to ask about safety, or even to ask to fight. To tell her that you were a good person, and that you would have only agreed to a deal with Vader to protect your city. To protect them."

Lando looks down at his boots, shiny black against the dark, packed earth. He should say something, he wants to say something, but his throat feels sharp and prickly, and he isn't sure the words will come out right.

"I can't believe it. Five days in a new place, and already they're ruining my reputation," he manages, finally.

Bodhi laughs. "Apparently, one young Mirialan woman got very intense. A lot of shouting. Only backed off when Commander Mothma personally promised her that you weren't going to be shot or put in confinement."

Lando looks up sharply. “Jax. Is she -"

"Don't worry. If shouting at high command got you in trouble, I'd have been court-martialed by now. She's fine."

Lando relaxes, at least as much as he can with the cold nausea churning in his stomach.

As they pass the mess hall, Bodhi looks inside it, shakes his head, and keeps walking.

"Sorry," he says, with a little nervous laugh. "It's like this no matter what planet we're on. Impossible to find peace and quiet anywhere on the base. It's almost as bad as being back at flight school."

Finally, Bodhi stops near what looks like a fleet of x-wings. There are only a few astromechs working on the ships, no pilots in sight. Beyond the ships, Lando can see grass stretching out to purple hills way off in the distance. 

Bodhi looks as though he's trying to say something, mouth opening and then closing.

"I'm not very good at getting to a point," he says, finally. "But what I'm trying to say is that I know what it cost you to rescue us." He sighs. "Well, no, that's not it. I don't _know_ , not really. But I probably have a better idea than most people."

Lando doesn't know what his smile looks like, but it feels wan. What had his trap cost Han? What had it cost Leia, Chewie, Luke? What had it cost Bodhi?

"Thanks," he says, flatly. "But I don't think I should get too much credit for that. It's just, you know. Fixing what I broke."

Bodhi gives him a lopsided smile. "Well, now you're definitely talking to the wrong person. You know, I spent the first three months with the Rebellion avoiding Leia?" He picks at the bandage around his wrist, fraying the edges, but doesn't break eye contact. "I wouldn't even be in the same room with her. I'd done my job and hadn't asked questions and ... fifteen shipments of Jedhan kyber. Sometimes, I wonder if it made the difference."

"Oh," Lando says. He'd forgotten that Bodhi had worked on the Death Star. "But that's not ... I mean, that's ..."

To his credit, Bodhi lets him finish.

"I betrayed your trust," and saying it burns cleanly, a knife up through the ribs. "I mean, I flirted with you. I _kissed_ you." It feels even worse in retrospect.

Bodhi laughs. "My trust? That's very sweet of you. My motto is 'prepare for the worst, and hope for the slightly-less-worse.' We were expecting a trap from the moment we touched down."

A little of the load lifts from Lando's chest.

"And, as for the kissing ..." He rubs the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. "I'm getting off-topic again. What I'm trying to say is ... you did something brave, something important. Whether or not you think so."

`

He puts a clearly-trying-to-be-casual hand on Lando's shoulder. The metal's barely warmer than skin would be, but it burns through Lando's thin shirt.

"You're a hero as far as the Rebellion is concerned." He swallows, and Lando can't help but follow the way his throat works around it. "As far as I'm concerned."

"Were you expecting Vader?" Lando asks, quietly.

Bodhi shivers involuntarily, movement travelling up through his arm to Lando's shoulder.

When they'd gone to rescue Bodhi from Vader's trooper, he'd been unfocussed, able to respond but not to hold a conversation. Even when they'd taken the restraints off him, he'd kept his hands behind his back as though he was still imprisoned, whispering something about the Force over and over as though it was the only thing he could hold onto.

What had it cost him to defy Vader like that?

"That was an unpleasant surprise," Bodhi says, with a wry smile that makes Lando want to pull him close and hold him tight.

"I just," he says, stops, realizes that there isn't any way to make it not awkward, and that he has to ask anyways, "I saw you, after we left the city. I know Vader's Force thing did a number on you. Are you, and I ask this with all the respect that I have in my heart, okay?"

He wants to kiss Bodhi so badly the wanting almost makes his hands shake, wants to kiss him for being stubborn and brave and beautiful, for facing down Darth Vader with frightened eyes and durasteel in his voice, for knowing what Lando had done and still standing here, an arm outstretched. But he needs to make sure. He doesn't want to hurt him.

Bodhi laughs quietly, dipping his head down and back up again. "Oh, probably not."

"What?"

"I mean, well, you know that Corellian cheese, the one with all the holes through it?"

"Yeah?"

"My head is like that, sometimes. More than I want. And I'm getting better, but my normal is not really at 'okay,' not always." He clenches his jaw, face going resolute. "But ... but I can make my own choices, still. I need to make my own choices. Can you trust me to do that?"

When he puts it like that, the answer is easy. "Well, yeah. Of course."

Bodhi looks down at the ground, suddenly shy. "Sorry. I don't know if you're ..."

He takes his hand off of Lando's shoulder, not looking up at his face. "I'm. I mean, if you don't want to..."

And finally, Lando knows what to do. "Hey," he says quietly, and brings a hand to Bodhi's chin, tipping it up slightly so he can look him in the eye. Bodhi's face is frozen somewhere between suspicion and hope.

"Don't worry. I can make my own choices, too."

When he kisses Bodhi, it's light, with none of the intensity of last time. He doesn't want to reopen the cut on Bodhi's lip. The kiss still tastes faintly of bacta, and of blood.

When he pulls away, Bodhi's eyes are still closed, and his lips are slightly parted. Lando snakes his arms around Bodhi's waist, holding him close.

"You know, I don't always make great choices, but I think I made a pretty good one here."

"Mmm," Bodhi says, opening his eyes. "How are you so smooth? It's just not fair, not when I sound like a malfunctioning droid with a half-comped language drive."

"Pfft. You're not -"

"The last time we kissed, I said "thank you" afterwards," Bodhi says, a pained light in his eyes. "Do you really want me to go through every embarrassing thing I've said to you, because I remember them _all._ "

Lando laughs.

They stand there for another minute, Bodhi warm in his arms. "I'd better get you back to the medcenter soon," he says, reluctantly pulling away. "Don't want your door guard getting angry with me."

Bodhi squints at him. "My what now?"

"You know. The woman at your door. Brown hair, up but not up like Leia's. Looks like she's got paramilitary training, face like she's about to elbow the world in the stomach? I tried to visit you earlier, but she persuaded me in a very armed way that I couldn't."

The woman had told him that there was no one named Bodhi Rook in the medcenter, which would have been more convincing if she hadn't been standing under a door display panel that said "B. Rook." But the blaster she'd been cleaning as she said it had made a very convincing argument.

Bodhi closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"She's … hold on a second," he says, holding up a finger. "I'm sorry, I just need to send a message."

He opens a screen on his wrist comm. "Voice message for Jyn Erso," he says, into it.

The machine beeps.

"Jyn, I know I've said this before, but I am finally going to do it this time. I am finally going to learn how to use a blaster properly, and I am going to go find you, and I am going to kill you. I mean it for real. Your hours are numbered. Bodhi. Message over."

Lando stands there, blinking. "Who was that?"

"She's ... she's a very good friend of mine. It's just, well, she doesn't quite know how to do friends yet? She still likes to show that she cares about her friends by threatening people she thinks have wronged them. It's," he sighs, "we're working on it."

"Oh," Lando says. "Just out of curiosity, are a lot of your friends going to threaten to kill me?"

Bodhi starts laughing, shoulders shaking with the force of it. "Probably not," he gasps.

"No, I'm serious! When Han and I ..." and there's no breath in his lungs, and the lump in his throat is back worse than ever because he can't joke about Han now, because Han's frozen, somewhere out among the stars.

Bodhi's smile goes gentle. "We'll save him. We'll make it right."

He takes Lando's hand, as casually as if it belongs there. "For now, we should get something to eat. As many of my friends have told me, many times, you can't save the galaxy on an empty stomach."

"Wait, weren't you supposed to go back to the medcenter?"

Bodhi laughs. "Ell-En is used to me wandering off. He’ll be happy that I'm at least with someone this time." His wrist comm beeps, and he looks down at it, and smiles. "Besides, I need to introduce you to the rest of the Rebellion. You showed me your city, it's only fair that I show you mine."

He starts back towards the buildings and tents of the base, and Lando follows, willingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is Jyn doing? Her best!
> 
> A serious and sincere thank you to everyone who's read along as I yelled about people Trying Their Best In Impossible Circumstances And Finding Some Peace Even Though Things Aren't Perfect.
> 
> (Also, my girlfriend said I should write a scene after the explosion of the second Death Star and while my brain isn't doing that, I keep thinking about how, whenever anyone congratulates Lando on blowing it up, he finds Bodhi, drags him over to the conversation, and says "thanks! i couldn't have done it without him!" Yes, they are That Kind Of Couple. sue me)


End file.
